🚀 Quick Start

Installation

Install via Homebrew

brew tap alexander-kolodka/crestic
brew install crestic

Install from source (requires Go 1.25+)

go install github.com/alexander-kolodka/crestic@latest

Basic Configuration

Create a crestic.yaml file:

# Global healthcheck URL (optional)
healthcheck_url: https://hc-ping.com/your-uuid-here
 
jobs:
  - type: backup
    name: documents
    from:
      - /home/user/Documents
      - /home/user/Projects
    to: local-repo
    cron: "0 2 * * *"  # Daily at 2 AM
    options:
      tag:
        - documents
        - daily
    hooks:
      before:
        - echo "Starting backup..."
      success:
        - echo "Backup completed!"
      failure:
        - echo "Backup failed!" >&2
 
repositories:
  local-repo:
    path: /backup/restic/documents
    password_command: "security find-generic-password -a restic-password -s crestic -w"
    forget_options:
      keep-daily: 7
      keep-weekly: 4
      keep-monthly: 12

Run Your First Backup

# Run a backup (auto-initializes repository if needed)
crestic backup --job documents
 
# What happens during backup:
# 1. Checks/initializes repository
# 2. Creates encrypted snapshot
# 3. Verifies integrity (check)
# 4. Applies retention policy (forget)
 
# Run all scheduled jobs (use this in system cron)
crestic cron

Schedule with System Cron

Add to your crontab:

# Check for scheduled backups every 5 minutes
*/5 * * * * /usr/local/bin/crestic cron --config /path/to/crestic.yaml

Crestic keeps track of the last run time, so even if it’s executed infrequently, it won’t skip any scheduled jobs.

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