Learning Restic - First Backup & Snapshot

#Introduction

Your repository came to life in episode 3. Now comes the moment you have been waiting for: the first backup. In this episode you will not just run commands, but also learn to compose a clean backup — tags for organization, excludes to avoid junk, and verification that the snapshot is really stored.

#First Backup

The basic command is simple:

restic backup /home/user --tag daily

Example backup output

repository 2223e26e6b opened (repository version 2)
no parent snapshot found, will read all files
files:       1234 new,     0 changed,     0 unmodified
dirs:         345 new,     0 changed,     0 unmodified
added to the repository: 1.234 GiB (790.456 MiB stored)
 
snapshot 8b0a7f2e saved

Note the last line: the snapshot ID 8b0a7f2e is the identity used for every subsequent operation (restore, forget, etc.).

#Why the Snapshot Is the "Parent"

The line no parent snapshot found means this is the first backup with nothing to reference. The next backup uses the last snapshot as its parent, so restic can compare and only read the files that changed — this is what makes the second backup fast.

#Tagging Snapshots

Tags are the main way to group snapshots, for example daily, weekly, or pre-deploy:

restic backup /var/www /etc/nginx --tag web --tag predeploy

Tags are used for filtering in restic snapshots and for the restic forget policy (episode 8). Plan your tag taxonomy from the start: env, freq, data-type — for example --tag prod --tag daily --tag db.

#Exclude: Keeping the Repository Clean

Junk that gets backed up wastes storage and slows everything down. Use --exclude for small patterns:

restic backup /home/user \
  --exclude="*.tmp" \
  --exclude="/home/user/.cache" \
  --exclude="/home/user/node_modules"

For many patterns, store them in a file — easier to maintain and can be shared across backups:

/etc/restic/excludes.txt

*.tmp
*.log
.cache/
node_modules/
/var/cache/*

restic backup /home/user --exclude-file=/etc/restic/excludes.txt

Exclude patterns follow Go's filepath.Match rules. Use a trailing slash (cache/) to make sure only directories are matched.

#Reading Snapshots

#List All Snapshots

restic snapshots

Example output

ID        Time                 Host        Tags        Paths
-------------------------------------------
8b0a7f2e  2026-08-13 09:00:00  web01       daily       /home/user

Combine it with tag and host filters: restic snapshots --tag daily, restic snapshots --host web01.

#Repository Statistics

restic stats calculates data size from different points of view:

restic stats latest

Main modes: --mode restore-size (total size if restored) and --mode raw-data (physical blob size in the repository) — the difference between them is dedup, which is covered in episode 6.

#Reading Snapshot Contents

restic ls 8b0a7f2e
restic ls 8b0a7f2e --path /home/user/Documents

restic ls shows every path in the snapshot; use --path to narrow it down. This is a quick way to verify that a specific file was really backed up.

#Verification After Backup

After a backup, get into the habit of checking two things: the snapshot shows up in restic snapshots, and the size of the backed-up data makes sense. Full integrity verification (with data re-reading) is covered in episode 11 — but this quick check already saves many cases of "turned out the folder was never backed up".

#Conclusion

• restic backup <path> --tag <tag> stores a new snapshot; the snapshot ID is its identity.
• The last snapshot becomes the parent — the next backup only reads the delta.
• Use tags for organization (daily, prod, db) and filtering.
• Exclude junk: --exclude inline or --exclude-file for many patterns.
• restic snapshots, restic stats, and restic ls are your daily verification lenses.

In the next episode, episode 5, we learn the reverse: restore & file extract — restoring an entire snapshot into a target directory with restic restore, pulling a single file with restic dump, and partial restores with --include/--exclude. Backing up is only half the story; restoring is the real test.