gitignore-style exclusion for restic

X::Don't Just Create Backups, Verify Them - How Restic Can Help?

Restic is a popular backup tool that supports the use of .gitignore-style exclusion patterns to ignore certain files and directories during the backup process. This feature is useful when you want to exclude specific files or directories from being backed up, such as temporary files, caches, or build artifacts.

To use ignore with Restic, you can create a file called .resticignore in the root of your repository (where you run Restic). This file should contain the patterns for the files and directories you want to ignore, just like you would do with a .gitignore file.

Here's how you can use ignore in Restic:

1. Create a .resticignore file: Inside your project's root directory (or the directory you're backing up), create a file named .resticignore. You can use any text editor to create this file.

2. Add patterns to ignore: In the .resticignore file, list the files and directories you want to ignore during the backup. Each pattern should be on a separate line. You can use the same syntax as you would in a .gitignore file.

For example, a simple .resticignore file might look like this:

*.log temp/ cache/ build/

The above example would ignore all files with the .log extension and the temp, cache, and build directories.

1. Run Restic backup with --ignore-file option: When running Restic to perform the backup, specify the .resticignore file using the --ignore-file option. This tells Restic to use the patterns in that file to exclude certain files and directories.

Here's an example command:

restic backup /path/to/your/data --ignore-file /path/to/.resticignore

Replace /path/to/your/data with the actual path of the data you want to back up and /path/to/.resticignore with the path to your .resticignore file.

By using the .resticignore file, you can customize what gets backed up and what gets excluded. This can be particularly useful to avoid backing up large or unnecessary files, reducing storage space and backup time.