b2restore

B2RESTORE

b2restore is a command line utility which can be used with rclone to manually restore a Backblaze B2 archive for any given date and time. Alternatively, you can create a git repository of all date and time snapshots (subject to the limitations described below).

Installation

Arch users can install b2restore from the AUR.

Python 3.7 or later is required. Note b2restore is on PyPI so just ensure that python-pipx is installed then type the following to install:

$ pipx install b2restore

To upgrade:

$ pipx upgrade b2restore

To remove:

$ pipx uninstall b2restore

Creation of initial rclone copy

This utility is typically used with rclone. Simply rclone sync or rclone copy the B2 bucket or sub-paths from the bucket which you want to restore. You MUST specify --b2-versions to include all file versions, e.g:

rclone sync --b2-versions --fast-list B2:mybucket b2files

The above command will copy all files and available versions to the created b2files directory. You only need to do this once.

Creation of snapshot at given time

Given the above rclone initial copy, you run this utility to create a snapshot of the directory tree for the time you are interested in.

E.g. to recreate the tree of latest files, in outdir:

b2restore b2files outdir

E.g. to recreate the tree of files at a specified time:

b2restore -t 2018-01-01T09:10.00 b2files outdir

Just keep selecting different times to incrementally recreate outdir as it existed at that time. The utility prints a line for each file updated, created, or deleted in outdir compared to the previous contents. The date and time of each updated/created/deleted file is also listed. The target files are all hard-linked from the files in the source directory so the outdir tree is created very quickly since files do not need to be actually copied. Thus you can conveniently experiment with the time string to quickly see file differences.

Rather than specifying an explicit time string using -t/--time, you can instead choose to use -f/--filetime to specify any one specific file's modification time at which to recreate the target tree of files.

You may wish to manually git commit each snapshot you create in the outdir tree between your manually time-selected runs. If so, you will need to add the -g switch to prevent b2restore from deleting your top level .git/ repo on each run.

Note that this utility does not recreate empty directory hierarchies. All empty directories in the target tree are deleted.

Limitations

If you want to restore a snapshot of your files for a specific date/time, then unfortunately the metadata returned by rclone from Backblaze B2 is not sufficient to create a completely legitimate snapshot. However, all files restored for a specific date/time will contain correct contents, the only issue is that there may be some files which were actually deleted by that date but those files may still be present. An example best illustrates the issue:

Say you run a rclone backup every night at 0000 am to B2:mybucket.

• On 01-Jan you create a file a.txt.
• On 02-Jan you delete file a.txt.
• On 03-Jan you create file a.txt again (but with different content to 01-Jan).
• On 04-Jan you retrieve the latest archive using rclone sync --b2-versions --fast-list B2:mybucket b2files.

If you run b2restore b2files outdir then you will get the latest 03-Jan version of a.txt in outdir. If you then run b2restore -t<time> b2files outdir for 01-Jan, then you will get a.txt with the correct content from 01-Jan. However, if run that command for 02-Jan, then you will still see the a.txt file and content corresponding to 01-Jan (when it actually should be deleted for that day). If you are only using b2restore to find and restore one or more files for specific date/times, then this is not a serious practical problem. There may be some extra files around, but all files are correct for the specified date/time.

Command line options

usage: b2restore [-h] [-t TIME | -f FILETIME] [-s] [-g] [-p PATH]
                 indir [outdir]

Program to recreate Backblaze B2 file archive at specified date and time.

positional arguments:
  indir                 input B2 archive containing all file versions (from
                        --b2-versions)
  outdir                output directory to recreate for given time

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -t TIME, --time TIME  set time YYYY-MM-DD[THH:MM[.SS]], default=latest
  -f FILETIME, --filetime FILETIME
                        set time based on specified file
  -s, --summary         just print a summary of files and versions
  -g, --gitkeep         preserve any top level git dir in outdir
  -p PATH, --path PATH  only process files under given path

Creation of git repository of all snapshots

Rather than run b2restore for the given date + times you are interested in, you can instead choose to run the provided b2restore-create-git utility to automatically create a git repository of snapshots of files for all the dates + times inherent in the rclone initial copy.

So after performing the rclone initial copy above, run the following command to create a complete git repository:

b2restore-create-git b2files outdir

Then cd outdir and run git log etc to view the history.

b2restore-create-git command line options

Usage: b2restore-create-git [-options] indir outdir
Create git repository from given B2 rclone copy.
Options:
-t YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM.SS (start git repo from given time)
-e YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM.SS (end git repo before given time)
-p (only process files under given path)

Test run utility

A command line utility b2restore-create-dummy-files is included to facilitate testing b2restore on your restored file tree without actually downloading any files from your B2 archive(!). This utility parses rclone lsl output to recreate your B2 bucket directory and hierarchy of file versions. Only the file names are recreated of course, the file contents are set to their actual byte size but with random byte contents (or zero filled if you specify -z, or to zero length if you specify -s).

This utility requires almost nothing to download from your B2 archive and runs extremely quickly. You can then run b2restore against this dummy archive to simulate what files are changed between versions, etc. It is also good to get a feel for how b2restore works, what it does, and whether it suits your needs without requiring you to first perform an onerous huge download of your entire B2 archive.

Here is an example usage:

rclone lsl --b2-versions B2:mybucket | b2restore-create-dummy-files b2files
b2restore b2files outdir
du -shl outdir # (see how much storage tree of latest versions uses)
b2restore -t 2018-05-10T12:00.00 b2files outdir
du -shl outdir # (see how much storage tree of yesterdays versions uses)

b2restore-create-dummy-files command line options

Usage: b2restore-create-dummy-files [-options] outdir
Reads B2 file list (from lsl output) from standard input to create
dummy tree of files.
Options:
-z (zero fill files, not with random content which is default)
-s (set files to zero length, not their actual size)
-p (only process files under given path)

License

Copyright (C) 2018 Mark Blakeney. This program is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License. This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/ for more details.