An option (even default) for restores to extract files directly including directory structure rather than download a zip file about restic-browser HOT 6 CLOSED

Hi @emuell
I agree with @damoclark
A zip is not a good way of restoring Linux files
Thanks

from restic-browser.

Agree. Thanks for the feedback.

Already changed this here, making it the default restore option: #33

from restic-browser.

Sorry for the bump, but I think I'll need to reopen this issue and revert the change in #33

There's no way to do a restic restore with relative paths. So restore operations always will (re)create the entire src path in the target directory. I think this is pretty confusing and may lead into even more confusion than what we had before.

An example:
Let's say we have a restic repository with the following contents:

C/Users/Me/Music/GreatStuff.mp3
C/Users/Me/Music/OtherStuff.mp3

If you now do a restore of only GreatStuff.mp3 in Restic-Browser and set your user's Downloads as target directory, it will create a directory: C/Users/Me/Music/ in your Downloads.

When using dump instead of 'restore' it will directly restore the file to the target path. Now when dumping a folder such as C/Users/Me/Music, a file Music.zip will be created. This isn't ideal for Linux, but at least won't recreate the entire folder structure at the target dir.

from restic-browser.

Hi @emuell

Rather than revert this change, can you support both use cases?

Reverting this change means you cannot restore ownerships, permissions, hard or soft links, or xattr on Unix-based systems using Restic-browser. It also means that you have to deal with an intermediary file, which could be problematic if the volume of data being restored is substantial - you effectively require twice the space to restore it, after extracting the zip.

What if the restore interface allows the following choices (with perhaps some defaults in the settings):

• Full restore using standard Restic semantics (including full directory structure and all metadata - ie. owners permissions xattr etc)
• Restore to an archive: (select zip or tar or if only a single file is chosen, restore it directly to the target dir)

The whole point of a backup utility is to be able to get our data back. I sometimes think backup tools focus too much on the backup phase (because that is what we do the most often), and too little on the restore phase (which is the whole point of the backups). This is why I see Restic-browser as being so valuable to the Restic ecosystem.

Is this something you might consider?

Damo.

from restic-browser.

Reverting this change means you cannot restore ownerships, permissions, hard or soft links, or xattr on Unix-based systems using Restic-browser. It also means that you have to deal with an intermediary file, which could be problematic if the volume of data being restored is substantial - you effectively require twice the space to restore it, after extracting the zip.

Yes, good point about ownership, permission and co. I'll simply add both options to the GUI, so you can use whatever fits best.

Actually, restoring and dumping already can be done with shortcuts right now: Press r key in file list for dumping, r key for restoring, but this should be more obvious in the GUI.

from restic-browser.

This was now done in #38

A new version which includes this change will be released very soon.

from restic-browser.