restic/doc/080_examples.rst

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Examples
########

********************************
Setting up restic with Amazon S3
********************************

Preface
=======

This tutorial will show you how to use restic with AWS S3. It will show you how
to navigate the AWS web interface, create an S3 bucket, create a user with
access to only this bucket, and finally how to connect restic to this bucket.

Prerequisites
=============

You should already have a ``restic`` binary available on your system that you can
run. Furthermore, you should also have an account with
`AWS <https://aws.amazon.com/>`__. You will likely need to provide credit card
details for billing purposes, even if you use their
`free-tier <https://aws.amazon.com/free/>`__.


Logging into AWS
================

Point your browser to
https://console.aws.amazon.com
and log in using your AWS account. You will be presented with the AWS homepage:

.. image:: images/aws_s3/01_aws_start.png
   :alt: AWS Homepage

By using the "Services" button in the upper left corder, a menu of all services
provided by AWS can be opened:

.. image:: images/aws_s3/02_aws_menu.png
   :alt: AWS Services Menu

For this tutorial, the Simple Storage Service (S3), as well as Identity and
Access Management (IAM) are relevant.


Creating the bucket
===================

First, a bucket to store your backups in must be created. Using the "Services"
menu, navigate to S3. In case you already have some S3 buckets, you will see a
list of them here:

.. image:: images/aws_s3/03_buckets_list_before.png
   :alt: List of S3 Buckets

Click the "Create bucket" button and choose a name and region for your new
bucket. For the purpose of this tutorial, the bucket will be named
``restic-demo`` and reside in Frankfurt. Because the bucket name space is
shared among all AWS users, the name ``restic-demo`` may not be available to
you. Be creative and choose a unique bucket name.

.. image:: images/aws_s3/04_bucket_create_start.png
   :alt: Create a Bucket

It is not necessary to configure any special properties or permissions of the
bucket just yet. Therefore, just finish the wizard without making any further
changes:

.. image:: images/aws_s3/05_bucket_create_review.png
   :alt: Review Bucket Creation

The newly created ``restic-demo`` bucket will now appear on the list of S3
buckets:

.. image:: images/aws_s3/06_buckets_list_after.png
   :alt: List With New Bucket

Creating a user
===============

Use the "Services" menu of the AWS web interface to navigate to IAM. This will
bring you to the IAM homepage. To create a new user, click on the "Users" menu
entry on the left:

.. image:: images/aws_s3/07_iam_start.png
   :alt: IAM Home Page

In case you already have set-up users with IAM before, you will see a list of
them here. Use the "Add user" button at the top to create a new user:

.. image:: images/aws_s3/08_user_list.png
   :alt: IAM User List

For this tutorial, the new user will be named ``restic-demo-user``. Feel free to
choose your own name that best fits your needs. This user will only ever access
AWS through the ``restic`` program and not through the web interface. Therefore,
"Programmatic access" is selected for "Access type":

.. image:: images/aws_s3/09_user_name.png
   :alt: Choose User Name and Access Type

During the next step, permissions can be assigned to the new user. To use this
user with restic, it only needs access to the ``restic-demo`` bucket. Select
"Attach existing policies directly", which will bring up a list of pre-defined
policies below. Afterwards, click the "Create policy" button to create a custom
policy:

.. image:: images/aws_s3/10_user_pre_policy.png
   :alt: Assign a Policy

A new browser window or tab will open with the policy wizard. In Amazon IAM,
policies are defined as JSON documents. For this tutorial, the "Visual editor"
will be used to generate a policy:

.. image:: images/aws_s3/11_policy_start.png
   :alt: Create a New Policy

For restic to work, two permission statements must be created using the visual
policy editor. The first statement is set up as follows:

.. code::

   Service: S3
   Allow Actions: DeleteObject, GetObject, PutObject
   Resources: arn:aws:s3:::restic-demo/*

This statement allows restic to create, read and delete objects inside the S3
bucket named ``restic-demo``. Adjust the bucket's name to the name of the
bucket you created earlier. Next, add a second statement using the "Add
additional permissions" button:

.. code::

   Service: S3
   Allow Actions: ListBucket, GetBucketLocation
   Resource: arn:aws:s3:::restic-demo

Again, substitute ``restic-demo`` with the actual name of your bucket. Note
that, unlike before, there is no ``/*`` after the bucket name. This statement
allows restic to list the objects stored in the ``restic-demo`` bucket and to
query the bucket's region.

Continue to the next step by clicking the "Review policy" button and enter a
name and description for this policy. For this tutorial, the policy will be
named ``restic-demo-policy``. Click "Create policy" to finish the process:

.. image:: images/aws_s3/13_policy_review.png
   :alt: Policy Review

Go back to the browser window or tab where you were previously creating the new
user. Click the button labeled "Refresh" above the list of policies to make
sure the newly created policy is available to you. Afterwards, use the search
function to search for the ``restic-demo-policy``. Select this policy using the
checkbox on the left. Then, continue to the next step.

.. image:: images/aws_s3/14_user_attach_policy.png
   :alt: Attach Policy to User

The next page will present an overview of the user account that is about to be
created. If everything looks good, click "Create user" to complete the process:

.. image:: images/aws_s3/15_user_review.png
   :alt: User Creation Review

After the user has been created, its access credentials will be displayed. They
consist of the "Access key ID" (think user name), and the "Secret access key"
(think password). Copy these down to a safe place.

.. image:: images/aws_s3/16_user_created.png
   :alt: User Credentials

You have now completed the configuration in AWS. Feel free to close your web
browser now.


Initializing the restic repository
==================================

Open a terminal and make sure you have the ``restic`` binary ready. First, choose
a password to encrypt your backups with. In this tutorial, ``apg`` is used for
this purpose:

.. code-block:: console

   $ apg -a 1 -m 32 -n 1 -M NCL
   I9n7G7G0ZpDWA3GOcJbIuwQCGvGUBkU5

Note this password somewhere safe along with your AWS credentials. Next, the
configuration of restic will be placed into environment variables. This will
include sensitive information, such as your AWS secret and repository password.
Therefore, make sure the next commands **do not** end up in your shell's
history file. Adjust the contents of the environment variables to fit your
bucket's name and your user's API credentials.

.. code-block:: console

   $ unset HISTFILE
   $ export RESTIC_REPOSITORY="s3:https://s3.amazonaws.com/restic-demo"
   $ export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID="AKIAJAJSLTZCAZ4SRI5Q"
   $ export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY="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"
   $ export RESTIC_PASSWORD="I9n7G7G0ZpDWA3GOcJbIuwQCGvGUBkU5"


After the environment is set up, restic may be called to initialize the
repository:


.. code-block:: console

   $ ./restic init
   created restic backend b5c661a86a at s3:https://s3.amazonaws.com/restic-demo

   Please note that knowledge of your password is required to access
   the repository. Losing your password means that your data is
   irrecoverably lost.

restic is now ready to be used with AWS S3. Try to create a backup:

.. code-block:: console

   $ dd if=/dev/urandom bs=1M count=10 of=test.bin
   10+0 records in
   10+0 records out
   10485760 bytes (10 MB, 10 MiB) copied, 0,0891322 s, 118 MB/s

   $ ./restic backup test.bin
   scan [/home/philip/restic-demo/test.bin]
   scanned 0 directories, 1 files in 0:00
   [0:04] 100.00%  2.500 MiB/s  10.000 MiB / 10.000 MiB  1 / 1 items ... ETA 0:00 
   duration: 0:04, 2.47MiB/s
   snapshot 10fdbace saved

   $ ./restic snapshots
   ID        Date                 Host        Tags        Directory
   ----------------------------------------------------------------------
   10fdbace  2017-03-26 16:41:50  blackbox                /home/philip/restic-demo/test.bin

A snapshot was created and stored in the S3 bucket. This snapshot may now be
restored:

.. code-block:: console

   $ mkdir restore

   $ ./restic restore 10fdbace --target restore
   restoring <Snapshot 10fdbace of [/home/philip/restic-demo/test.bin] at 2017-03-26 16:41:50.201418102 +0200 CEST by philip@blackbox> to restore

   $ ls restore/
   test.bin

The snapshot was successfully restored. This concludes the tutorial.


*****************************************************
Backing up your system without running restic as root
*****************************************************

Motivation
==========

Creating a complete backup of a machine requires a privileged process
that is able to read all files. On UNIX-like systems this is
traditionally the ``root`` user. Processes running as root have
superpower. They cannot only read all files but do also have the power
to modify the system in any possible way.

With great power comes great responsibility. If a process running as
root malfunctions, is exploited, or simply configured in a wrong way it
can cause any possible damage to the system. This means you only want
to run programs as root that you trust completely. And even if you
trust a program, it is good and common practice to run it with the
least possible privileges.

Capabilities on Linux
=====================

Fortunately, Linux has functionality to divide root's power into
single separate *capabilities*. You can remove these from a process
running as root to restrict it. And you can add capabilities to a
process running as a normal user, which is what we are going to do.

Full backup without root
========================

To be able to completely backup a system, restic has to read all the
files. Luckily Linux knows a capability that allows precisely this. We
can assign this single capability to restic and then run it as an
unprivileged user.

First we create a new user called ``restic`` that is going to create
the backups:

.. code-block:: console

   root@a3e580b6369d:/# useradd -m restic

Then we download and install the restic binary into the user's home
directory.

.. code-block:: console

   root@a3e580b6369d:/# mkdir ~restic/bin
   root@a3e580b6369d:/# curl -L https://github.com/restic/restic/releases/download/v0.9.1/restic_0.9.1_linux_amd64.bz2 | bunzip2 > ~restic/bin/restic

Before we assign any special capability to the restic binary we
restrict its permissions so that only root and the newly created
restic user can execute it. Otherwise another - possibly untrusted -
user could misuse the privileged restic binary to circumvent file
access controls.

.. code-block:: console

   root@a3e580b6369d:/# chown root:restic ~restic/bin/restic
   root@a3e580b6369d:/# chmod 750 ~restic/bin/restic

Finally we can use ``setcap`` to add an extended attribute to the
restic binary. On every execution the system will read the extended
attribute, interpret it and assign capabilities accordingly.

.. code-block:: console

   root@a3e580b6369d:/# setcap cap_dac_read_search=+ep ~restic/bin/restic

From now on the user ``restic`` can run restic to backup the whole
system.

.. code-block:: console

   root@a3e580b6369d:/# sudo -u restic /home/restic/bin/restic --exclude={/dev,/media,/mnt,/proc,/run,/sys,/tmp,/var/tmp} -r /tmp backup /