Step-by-step instructions on how to backup to Hetzner Storage Boxes using autorestic.

Installing autorestic Link to heading

The autorestic developers provide a simple one-liner to install autorestic and restic.

wget -qO - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cupcakearmy/autorestic/master/install.sh | bash

Create a dedicated SSH key for Hetzner Link to heading

Now we need to set up access to our storage box. We will use sftp/scp to do this. To automate the backup, we will create a dedicated ssh key for this:

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -f ~/.ssh/storagebox

Then we need to lookup the server, username and password for our storagebox. With this information we can copy the key to the box:

export user=u123456
$ cat .ssh/storagebox.pub | ssh -p23 $user@$user.your-storagebox.de install-ssh-key
u123456@u123456.your-storagebox.de's password: 
Key No. 1 (ssh-ed25519 root@v22021044222150411) was installed in RFC4716 format
Key No. 1 (ssh-ed25519 root@v22021044222150411) was installed in OpenSSH format

The above command will ask for the account password and then install the key.

Now we can ssh into the storagebox without having to enter a password:

export user=u123456
ssh -p23 -i .ssh/storagebox $user@$user.your-storagebox.de

Setting up the restic repository Link to heading

Since we are using a custom name for our ssh key, we need to make restic aware of it. The easiest way is to add the following snippet to .ssh/config:

Host storagebox
  Hostname $user.your-storagebox.de
  Port 23
  User $user
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/storagebox

Then we can run the following command to initialise our repository:

restic -r sftp://storagebox/restic init

Keep the repository password in a safe place.

Create the autorestic configuration Link to heading 

version: 2

locations:
  home:
    from: /root
    to: storagebox

backends:
  storagebox:
    type: sftp
    path: storagebox:restic
    key: your-key

Once the above is saved as .autorestic.yml and the your-key bit is replaced with your actual password, you can run your first backup using autorestic -av backup.

Check if everything works Link to heading

Once the backup is complete, you can view your snapshot using:

restic -r sftp://storagebox/restic snapshots