A production-ready solution for automated, encrypted, and deduplicated Linux home directory backups using restic and systemd.
Install & Download
1. ClawHub CLI
The fastest way to install a skill directly from the registry.
npx clawhub@latest install restic-home-backup-safe
2. Manual Installation
Copy the skill folder to one of these locations
~/.openclaw/skills/ <project>/skills/ Priority: Workspace > Local > Bundled
3. Prompt Installation
Copy this prompt to OpenClaw to install it automatically.
Help me install restic-home-backup-safe using Clawhub. If Clawhub is not installed, install it first (npm i -g clawhub).
Prefer to download?
Get the raw skill files in a ZIP archive.
What is Restic Home Backup?
Restic Home Backup is a comprehensive automation skill designed to secure Linux home directories. It leverages the power of restic to provide encrypted, deduplicated, and versioned backups to various backends such as local disks, S3, or SFTP. By integrating directly with systemd, this skill ensures that your backup lifecycle—including snapshots, pruning, and integrity checks—is fully automated and reliable.
As part of the growing ecosystem of Openclaw Skills, it focuses on operational safety, ensuring that sensitive credentials remain protected while providing a clear path for disaster recovery. It enforces strict permission standards and requires explicit user confirmation before applying changes to system directories, making it an essential tool for maintaining high-integrity backup workflows.
Restic Home Backup Use Cases
- Automating daily or weekly backups of the home directory to offsite cloud storage.
- Implementing retention policies to manage disk space while keeping historical snapshots.
- Setting up secure, encrypted backup repositories with automated integrity verification.
- Hardening backup security on Linux systems using systemd timers and root-only credential files.
How Restic Home Backup Works
- The skill assesses the backup requirements, including the source path, destination repository endpoint, and preferred retention policy.
- It generates deterministic setup artifacts, including environment files and shell scripts, using a plan-only mode for safety.
- It configures systemd service and timer units to handle the automated backup, pruning, and check routines.
- A validation phase runs a smoke test restore and an initial snapshot to ensure the repository is functional and accessible.
- It produces a short operator runbook for ongoing maintenance and manual restore procedures.
Restic Home Backup Setup
To deploy this skill within your Openclaw Skills environment, ensure restic is installed and then follow these steps:
# Bootstrap the backup implementation (plan-only by default)
./scripts/bootstrap_restic_home.sh --repo /path/to/repo
# Apply the system changes with explicit confirmation
./scripts/bootstrap_restic_home.sh --repo /path/to/repo --apply
# Verify the systemd timers are active
systemctl list-timers | grep restic
Restic Home Backup Data Schema & Taxonomy
The skill organizes backup metadata and configuration across the following system paths to ensure security and discoverability:
| Path | Description |
|---|---|
/etc/restic-home.env |
Secured environment variables and backup secrets (chmod 600). |
/usr/local/bin/restic-home-*.sh |
Operational scripts for backup, prune, and integrity checks. |
/etc/systemd/system/restic-home-*.service |
Systemd service units defining the execution logic. |
/etc/systemd/system/restic-home-*.timer |
Scheduling units for automated lifecycle management. |
Restic Home Backup Advanced Features
- Support for multiple backend transports including S3, B2, SFTP, and local disk.
- Deterministic artifact generation using dedicated bootstrap scripts.
- Automated integrity checks and repository maintenance via systemd.
- Safety-first design that prevents secret leakage in logs and requires explicit --apply flags.
- Standardized integration with Openclaw Skills for easy packaging and CLI-based distribution.
SKILL.md
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