We're very pleased to present you restic 0.11.0! restic is distributed as a standalone binary: download the correct file for your operating system and architecture, extract the file and just run it. If you run into any issues, please report them at the GitHub issue tracker or visit the forum. If you already have restic >= 0.9.4, you can use restic self-update to get the latest version in a secure way.

The binaries released with each restic version are reproducible, which means that you can reproduce a byte identical version from the source code for that release. Instructions on how to do that in the Developer Documentation.

Changelog for restic 0.11.0 (2020-11-05)

The following sections list the changes in restic 0.11.0 relevant to restic users. The changes are ordered by importance.

Summary

• Fix #1212: Restore timestamps and permissions on intermediate directories
• Fix #1756: Mark repository files as read-only when using the local backend
• Fix #2241: Hide password in REST backend repository URLs
• Fix #2319: Correctly dump directories into tar files
• Fix #2491: Don't require self-update --output placeholder file
• Fix #2834: Fix rare cases of backup command hanging forever
• Fix #2938: Fix manpage formatting
• Fix #2942: Make --exclude-larger-than handle disappearing files
• Fix #2951: Restic generate, help and self-update no longer check passwords
• Fix #2979: Make snapshots --json output [] instead of null when no snapshots
• Enh #2969: Optimize check for unchanged files during backup
• Enh #340: Add support for Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) on Windows
• Enh #2849: Authenticate to Google Cloud Storage with access token
• Enh #1458: New option --repository-file
• Enh #2978: Warn if parent snapshot cannot be loaded during backup

Details

• Bugfix #1212: Restore timestamps and permissions on intermediate directories

  When using the --include option of the restore command, restic restored timestamps and permissions only on directories selected by the include pattern. Intermediate directories, which are necessary to restore files located in sub- directories, were created with default permissions. We've fixed the restore command to restore timestamps and permissions for these directories as well.

  #1212 #1402 #2906

• Bugfix #1756: Mark repository files as read-only when using the local backend

  Files stored in a local repository were marked as writeable on the filesystem for non-Windows systems, which did not prevent accidental file modifications outside of restic. In addition, the local backend did not work with certain filesystems and network mounts which do not permit modifications of file permissions.

  Restic now marks files stored in a local repository as read-only on the filesystem on non-Windows systems. The error handling is improved to support more filesystems.

  #1756 #2157 #2989

• Bugfix #2241: Hide password in REST backend repository URLs

  When using a password in the REST backend repository URL, the password could in some cases be included in the output from restic, e.g. when initializing a repo or during an error.

  The password is now replaced with "***" where applicable.

  #2241 #2658

• Bugfix #2319: Correctly dump directories into tar files

  The dump command previously wrote directories in a tar file in a way which can cause compatibility problems. This caused, for example, 7zip on Windows to not open tar files containing directories. In addition it was not possible to dump directories with extended attributes. These compatibility problems are now corrected.

  In addition, a tar file now includes the name of the owner and group of a file.

  #2319 #3039

• Bugfix #2491: Don't require self-update --output placeholder file

  restic self-update --output /path/to/new-restic used to require that new-restic was an existing file, to be overwritten. Now it's possible to download an updated restic binary to a new path, without first having to create a placeholder file.

  #2491 #2937

• Bugfix #2834: Fix rare cases of backup command hanging forever

  We've fixed an issue with the backup progress reporting which could cause restic to hang forever right before finishing a backup.

  #2834 #2963

• Bugfix #2938: Fix manpage formatting

  The manpage formatting in restic v0.10.0 was garbled, which is fixed now.

  #2938 #2977

• Bugfix #2942: Make --exclude-larger-than handle disappearing files

  There was a small bug in the backup command's --exclude-larger-than option where files that disappeared between scanning and actually backing them up to the repository caused a panic. This is now fixed.

  #2942

• Bugfix #2951: Restic generate, help and self-update no longer check passwords

  The commands restic cache, generate, help and self-update don't need passwords, but they previously did run the RESTIC_PASSWORD_COMMAND (if set in the environment), prompting users to authenticate for no reason. They now skip running the password command.

  #2951 #2987

• Bugfix #2979: Make snapshots --json output [] instead of null when no snapshots

  Restic previously output null instead of [] for the --json snapshots command, when there were no snapshots in the repository. This caused some minor problems when parsing the output, but is now fixed such that [] is output when the list of snapshots is empty.

  #2979 #2984

• Enhancement #2969: Optimize check for unchanged files during backup

  During a backup restic skips processing files which have not changed since the last backup run. Previously this required opening each file once which can be slow on network filesystems. The backup command now checks for file changes before opening a file. This considerably reduces the time to create a backup on network filesystems.

  #2969 #2970

• Enhancement #340: Add support for Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) on Windows

  Volume Shadow Copy Service allows read access to files that are locked by another process using an exclusive lock through a filesystem snapshot. Restic was unable to backup those files before. This update enables backing up these files.

  This needs to be enabled explicitely using the --use-fs-snapshot option of the backup command.

  #340 #2274

• Enhancement #2849: Authenticate to Google Cloud Storage with access token

  When using the GCS backend, it is now possible to authenticate with OAuth2 access tokens instead of a credentials file by setting the GOOGLE_ACCESS_TOKEN environment variable.

  #2849

• Enhancement #1458: New option --repository-file

  We've added a new command-line option --repository-file as an alternative to -r. This allows to read the repository URL from a file in order to prevent certain types of information leaks, especially for URLs containing credentials.

  #1458 #2900 #2910

• Enhancement #2978: Warn if parent snapshot cannot be loaded during backup

  During a backup restic uses the parent snapshot to check whether a file was changed and has to be backed up again. For this check the backup has to read the directories contained in the old snapshot. If a tree blob cannot be loaded, restic now warns about this problem with the backup repository.

  #2978