Restic self-update fails in Debian 10

Getting Help
1

The packaged version on Debian seemed old, so I tried the self-update but it fails. I tried with sudo and as a regular user.

$ restic version
restic 0.9.4 compiled with go1.11.6 on linux/amd64

$ restic self-update
writing restic to /usr/bin/restic
find latest release of restic at GitHub
latest version is 0.11.0
download SHA256SUMS
download SHA256SUMS.asc
GPG signature verification succeeded
download restic_0.11.0_linux_amd64.bz2
Fatal: unable to update restic: context deadline exceeded

Any tips on how to make it work?

Can’t get it to work on my Kubuntu system either :confused:

2

Can you please download the latest beta from restic beta releases (/) and see if the same problem persist with that version?

1 Like
3

downloaded restic_v0.11.0-262-gaa0faa8c_linux_amd64 with wget
renamed to restic
chmod to root:root
chown to 0755
moved to /usr/bin

$ restic version
-bash: /usr/bin/restic: cannot execute binary file: Exec format error

Not sure if that is correct way to install a bin, but that’s what I got.

My system from: hostnamectl
Operating System: Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster)
Kernel: Linux 4.19.0-13-amd64
Architecture: x86-64

4

I think the download failed. What command did you run to download that file? If you run less /usr/bin/restic I think you’ll see some plain text instead of an actual binary.

I’d suggest using curl -OL https://beta.restic.net/restic-v0.11.0-262-gaa0faa8c/restic_v0.11.0-262-gaa0faa8c_linux_amd64 to download the file.

You should get something like the following when running file on it:

$ file restic_v0.11.0-262-gaa0faa8c_linux_amd64 
restic_v0.11.0-262-gaa0faa8c_linux_amd64: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), statically linked, not stripped
5

  1. To download I used this:
    wget https://beta.restic.net/restic-v0.11.0-262-gaa0faa8c/restic_v0.11.0-262-gaa0faa8c_linux_arm64

  2. less /usr/bin/restic gives me lots of this
    ^?ELF^B^A^A^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^B^@<B7>^@^A^@^@^@0>^G^@^@^@^@^@@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@<C8>^A^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@@^@8^@^G^@@

  3. Trying curl
    admin@host:~$ curl -OL https://beta.restic.net/restic-v0.11.0-262-gaa0faa8c/restic_v0.11.0-262-gaa0faa8c_linux_amd64 % Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed 100 25.6M 100 25.6M 0 0 161k 0 0:02:42 0:02:42 --:--:-- 732k
    $ file restic_v0.11.0-262-gaa0faa8c_linux_amd64 restic_v0.11.0-262-gaa0faa8c_linux_amd64: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), statically linked, Go BuildID=jnxgGkfblVTeq3W4nW3j/2nHtk0Mj3494dyQ_6G1r/-D94l5l6sTLeq0GL2zei/vyPnd54xRK4PymNaGoJq, not stripped

This was previous file I had that didn’t work:
$ file /usr/bin/restic /usr/bin/restic: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, ARM aarch64, version 1 (SYSV), statically linked, Go BuildID=f2-pps5F234whaLaL-w7/lmg9oij9fq4gYuB_SU68/Cfvu-7CaSBmsWyLATCE4/V3RrWOmwPC2RtkJxxjmt, not stripped
it is ARM for some reason? :confused: Oh man looking at the wget command I used, I downloaded arm64 instead of amd64. But still weird that self-update doesn’t work by itself.

Ok so moved to /usr/bin/
$ restic version restic 0.11.0-dev (compiled manually) compiled with go1.15.6 on linux/amd64

And now I tried it again with Kubuntu and it magically worked today. Odd because I tried it 3-5 times yesterday. So the moral of the story is to try many many times, maybe even wait a day and it’ll work :smiley:

$ sudo restic self-update [sudo] password for XXXXX: writing restic to /usr/bin/restic find latest release of restic at GitHub latest version is 0.11.0 download SHA256SUMS download SHA256SUMS.asc GPG signature verification succeeded download restic_0.11.0_linux_amd64.bz2 downloaded restic_0.11.0_linux_amd64.bz2 saved 19128320 bytes in /usr/bin/restic successfully updated restic to version 0.11.0

Sorry for taking us down this rabbit hole! Hope this helps some other newbies who are having trouble with self-update :smiley:

6

Yeah, seems you got the ARM version the first time.

Glad it works now, I can’t say why the old version didn’t work.

7

Hi Arkadi,

Did you remember to use sudo when you tried to update restock? When it’s in /usr/bin it needs sudo to update.

So you’d usually use:
sudo restic self-update

This could’ve been your problem in the beginning.

Glad you got it working in the end though!
jedi453

8

I’d instead remove the restic package and put the downloaded binary in /usr/local/bin. The directory /usr/bin should usually only be used by OS packages. /usr/local/* is where you put stuff you install manually, outside of packages.

2 Likes