Can another server run compression on behalf of another?

Getting Help
1

I guess the question comes down to does the server running the compression need access to the cache, the files or some other unseen variable.

Currently I set eviroment variables:

export B2_ACCOUNT_ID=XXXX
export B2_ACCOUNT_KEY=XXXX
export RESTIC_PASSWORD_FILE=/root/.restic.passwd
export RESTIC_CACHE_DIR=/home/.cache/restic

So to be clear this is the command I was wanting to run on another server with more CPU available.
nice -n 19 restic -r {{ repo }} prune --repack-uncompressed --compression max

Does it use the cache at all? Or is the is “RESTIC_CACHE_DIR” ignored for this command.

2

Any machine can run the prune command. The beefier the CPU and RAM, the faster it’ll go. Yes, it uses the cache. If it isn’t present on the other machine, Restic will take care of that.

3

So if I’m running the compression command for several servers in a row I should make sure it clears the temporary cash on the server doing the processing between each server right?

4

Not at all unless you are desperate for disk space. Cache is repo specific so no issue with operating on multiple different repositories from a single computer (can be even at the same time).

1 Like
5

Okay so only if disk space is a concern.

It might be for me since it would be about 100 servers and 200 TB of data to go through.

Also as this is a one-time use of a separate server there’s no benefit of leaving the caches. Just wanted be sure that restic would handle it.