Field notes

April 2026

Backups I actually restore from

A backup you have never restored is a hope, not a backup. My setup is deliberately boring: restic, an inexpensive storage box, and a systemd timer.

restic backup /etc /home /var/lib --exclude-caches

Once a month a reminder makes me restore a random directory into a scratch folder and diff it against the original. It takes ten minutes and has caught two broken setups so far.