---
title: "rclone serve restic"
description: "Serve the remote for restic's REST API."
versionIntroduced: v1.40
# autogenerated - DO NOT EDIT, instead edit the source code in cmd/serve/restic/ and as part of making a release run "make commanddocs"
---
# rclone serve restic

Serve the remote for restic's REST API.

## Synopsis

Run a basic web server to serve a remote over restic's REST backend
API over HTTP.  This allows restic to use rclone as a data storage
mechanism for cloud providers that restic does not support directly.

[Restic](https://restic.net/) is a command-line program for doing
backups.

The server will log errors.  Use -v to see access logs.

`--bwlimit` will be respected for file transfers.
Use `--stats` to control the stats printing.

## Setting up rclone for use by restic ###

First [set up a remote for your chosen cloud provider](/docs/#configure).

Once you have set up the remote, check it is working with, for example
"rclone lsd remote:".  You may have called the remote something other
than "remote:" - just substitute whatever you called it in the
following instructions.

Now start the rclone restic server

    rclone serve restic -v remote:backup

Where you can replace "backup" in the above by whatever path in the
remote you wish to use.

By default this will serve on "localhost:8080" you can change this
with use of the `--addr` flag.

You might wish to start this server on boot.

Adding `--cache-objects=false` will cause rclone to stop caching objects
returned from the List call. Caching is normally desirable as it speeds
up downloading objects, saves transactions and uses very little memory.

## Setting up restic to use rclone ###

Now you can [follow the restic
instructions](http://restic.readthedocs.io/en/latest/030_preparing_a_new_repo.html#rest-server)
on setting up restic.

Note that you will need restic 0.8.2 or later to interoperate with
rclone.

For the example above you will want to use "http://localhost:8080/" as
the URL for the REST server.

For example:

    $ export RESTIC_REPOSITORY=rest:http://localhost:8080/
    $ export RESTIC_PASSWORD=yourpassword
    $ restic init
    created restic backend 8b1a4b56ae at rest:http://localhost:8080/

    Please note that knowledge of your password is required to access
    the repository. Losing your password means that your data is
    irrecoverably lost.
    $ restic backup /path/to/files/to/backup
    scan [/path/to/files/to/backup]
    scanned 189 directories, 312 files in 0:00
    [0:00] 100.00%  38.128 MiB / 38.128 MiB  501 / 501 items  0 errors  ETA 0:00
    duration: 0:00
    snapshot 45c8fdd8 saved

### Multiple repositories ####

Note that you can use the endpoint to host multiple repositories.  Do
this by adding a directory name or path after the URL.  Note that
these **must** end with /.  Eg

    $ export RESTIC_REPOSITORY=rest:http://localhost:8080/user1repo/
    # backup user1 stuff
    $ export RESTIC_REPOSITORY=rest:http://localhost:8080/user2repo/
    # backup user2 stuff

### Private repositories ####

The`--private-repos` flag can be used to limit users to repositories starting
with a path of `/<username>/`.

## Server options

Use `--addr` to specify which IP address and port the server should
listen on, eg `--addr 1.2.3.4:8000` or `--addr :8080` to listen to all
IPs.  By default it only listens on localhost.  You can use port
:0 to let the OS choose an available port.

If you set `--addr` to listen on a public or LAN accessible IP address
then using Authentication is advised - see the next section for info.

You can use a unix socket by setting the url to `unix:///path/to/socket`
or just by using an absolute path name.

`--addr` may be repeated to listen on multiple IPs/ports/sockets.
Socket activation, described further below, can also be used to accomplish the same.

`--server-read-timeout` and `--server-write-timeout` can be used to
control the timeouts on the server.  Note that this is the total time
for a transfer.

`--max-header-bytes` controls the maximum number of bytes the server will
accept in the HTTP header.

`--baseurl` controls the URL prefix that rclone serves from.  By default
rclone will serve from the root.  If you used `--baseurl "/rclone"` then
rclone would serve from a URL starting with "/rclone/".  This is
useful if you wish to proxy rclone serve.  Rclone automatically
inserts leading and trailing "/" on `--baseurl`, so `--baseurl "rclone"`,
`--baseurl "/rclone"` and `--baseurl "/rclone/"` are all treated
identically.

### TLS (SSL)

By default this will serve over http.  If you want you can serve over
https.  You will need to supply the `--cert` and `--key` flags.
If you wish to do client side certificate validation then you will need to
supply `--client-ca` also.

`--cert` must be set to the path of a file containing
either a PEM encoded certificate, or a concatenation of that with the CA
certificate. `--key` must be set to the path of a file
with the PEM encoded private key. If setting `--client-ca`,
it should be set to the path of a file with PEM encoded client certificate
authority certificates.

`--min-tls-version` is minimum TLS version that is acceptable. Valid
values are "tls1.0", "tls1.1", "tls1.2" and "tls1.3" (default "tls1.0").

## Socket activation

Instead of the listening addresses specified above, rclone will listen to all
FDs passed by the service manager, if any (and ignore any arguments passed
by `--addr`).

This allows rclone to be a socket-activated service.
It can be configured with .socket and .service unit files as described in
https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/latest/systemd.socket.html

Socket activation can be tested ad-hoc with the `systemd-socket-activate`command

       systemd-socket-activate -l 8000 -- rclone serve

This will socket-activate rclone on the first connection to port 8000 over TCP.
### Authentication

By default this will serve files without needing a login.

You can either use an htpasswd file which can take lots of users, or
set a single username and password with the `--user` and `--pass` flags.

If no static users are configured by either of the above methods, and client
certificates are required by the `--client-ca` flag passed to the server, the
client certificate common name will be considered as the username.

Use `--htpasswd /path/to/htpasswd` to provide an htpasswd file.  This is
in standard apache format and supports MD5, SHA1 and BCrypt for basic
authentication.  Bcrypt is recommended.

To create an htpasswd file:

    touch htpasswd
    htpasswd -B htpasswd user
    htpasswd -B htpasswd anotherUser

The password file can be updated while rclone is running.

Use `--realm` to set the authentication realm.

Use `--salt` to change the password hashing salt from the default.



```
rclone serve restic remote:path [flags]
```

## Options

```
      --addr stringArray                IPaddress:Port, :Port or [unix://]/path/to/socket to bind server to (default [127.0.0.1:8080])
      --allow-origin string             Origin which cross-domain request (CORS) can be executed from
      --append-only                     Disallow deletion of repository data
      --baseurl string                  Prefix for URLs - leave blank for root
      --cache-objects                   Cache listed objects (default true)
      --cert string                     Path to TLS PEM public key certificate file (can also include intermediate/CA certificates)
      --client-ca string                Path to TLS PEM CA file with certificate authorities to verify clients with
  -h, --help                            help for restic
      --htpasswd string                 A htpasswd file - if not provided no authentication is done
      --key string                      Path to TLS PEM private key file
      --max-header-bytes int            Maximum size of request header (default 4096)
      --min-tls-version string          Minimum TLS version that is acceptable (default "tls1.0")
      --pass string                     Password for authentication
      --private-repos                   Users can only access their private repo
      --realm string                    Realm for authentication
      --salt string                     Password hashing salt (default "dlPL2MqE")
      --server-read-timeout Duration    Timeout for server reading data (default 1h0m0s)
      --server-write-timeout Duration   Timeout for server writing data (default 1h0m0s)
      --stdio                           Run an HTTP2 server on stdin/stdout
      --user string                     User name for authentication
```

See the [global flags page](/flags/) for global options not listed here.

## See Also

* [rclone serve](/commands/rclone_serve/)	 - Serve a remote over a protocol.

