Changelog for rest-server 0.14.0 (2025-05-31) ============================================ The following sections list the changes in rest-server 0.14.0 relevant to users. The changes are ordered by importance. Summary ------- * Sec #318: Fix world-readable permissions on new `.htpasswd` files * Chg #322: Update dependencies and require Go 1.23 or newer * Enh #174: Support proxy-based authentication * Enh #189: Support group accessible repositories * Enh #295: Output status of append-only mode on startup * Enh #315: Hardened tls settings * Enh #321: Add zip archive format for Windows releases Details ------- * Security #318: Fix world-readable permissions on new `.htpasswd` files On startup the rest-server Docker container creates an empty `.htpasswd` file if none exists yet. This file was world-readable by default, which can be a security risk, even though the file only contains hashed passwords. This has been fixed such that new `.htpasswd` files are no longer world-readabble. The permissions of existing `.htpasswd` files must be manually changed if relevant in your setup. https://github.com/restic/rest-server/issues/318 https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/340 * Change #322: Update dependencies and require Go 1.23 or newer All dependencies have been updated. Rest-server now requires Go 1.23 or newer to build. This also disables support for TLS versions older than TLS 1.2. On Windows, rest-server now requires at least Windows 10 or Windows Server 2016. On macOS, rest-server now requires at least macOS 11 Big Sur. https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/322 https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/338 * Enhancement #174: Support proxy-based authentication Rest-server now supports authentication via HTTP proxy headers. This feature can be enabled by specifying the username header using the `--proxy-auth-username` option (e.g., `--proxy-auth-username=X-Forwarded-User`). When enabled, the server authenticates users based on the specified header and disables Basic Auth. Note that proxy authentication is disabled when `--no-auth` is set. https://github.com/restic/rest-server/issues/174 https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/307 * Enhancement #189: Support group accessible repositories Rest-server now supports making repositories accessible to the filesystem group by setting the `--group-accessible-repos` option. Note that permissions of existing files are not modified. To allow the group to read and write file, use a umask of `007`. To only grant read access use `027`. To make an existing repository group-accessible, use `chmod -R g+rwX /path/to/repo`. https://github.com/restic/rest-server/issues/189 https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/308 * Enhancement #295: Output status of append-only mode on startup Rest-server now displays the status of append-only mode during startup. https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/295 * Enhancement #315: Hardened tls settings Rest-server now uses a secure TLS cipher suite set by default. The minimum TLS version is now TLS 1.2 and can be further increased using the new `--tls-min-ver` option, allowing users to enforce stricter security requirements. https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/315 * Enhancement #321: Add zip archive format for Windows releases Windows users can now download rest-server binaries in zip archive format (.zip) in addition to the existing tar.gz archives. https://github.com/restic/rest-server/issues/321 https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/346 Changelog for rest-server 0.13.0 (2024-07-26) ============================================ The following sections list the changes in rest-server 0.13.0 relevant to users. The changes are ordered by importance. Summary ------- * Chg #267: Update dependencies and require Go 1.18 or newer * Chg #273: Shut down cleanly on TERM and INT signals * Enh #271: Print listening address after start-up * Enh #272: Support listening on a unix socket Details ------- * Change #267: Update dependencies and require Go 1.18 or newer Most dependencies have been updated. Since some libraries require newer language features, support for Go 1.17 has been dropped, which means that rest-server now requires at least Go 1.18 to build. https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/267 * Change #273: Shut down cleanly on TERM and INT signals Rest-server now listens for TERM and INT signals and cleanly closes down the http.Server and listener when receiving either of them. This is particularly useful when listening on a unix socket, as the server will now remove the socket file when it shuts down. https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/273 * Enhancement #271: Print listening address after start-up When started with `--listen :0`, rest-server would print `start server on :0` The message now also includes the actual address listened on, for example `start server on 0.0.0.0:37333`. This is useful when starting a server with an auto-allocated free port number (port 0). https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/271 * Enhancement #272: Support listening on a unix socket It is now possible to make rest-server listen on a unix socket by prefixing the socket filename with `unix:` and passing it to the `--listen` option, for example `--listen unix:/tmp/foo`. This is useful in combination with remote port forwarding to enable a remote server to backup locally, e.g.: ``` rest-server --listen unix:/tmp/foo & ssh -R /tmp/foo:/tmp/foo user@host restic -r rest:http+unix:///tmp/foo:/repo backup ``` https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/272 Changelog for rest-server 0.12.1 (2023-07-09) ============================================ The following sections list the changes in rest-server 0.12.1 relevant to users. The changes are ordered by importance. Summary ------- * Fix #230: Fix erroneous warnings about unsupported fsync * Fix #238: API: Return empty array when listing empty folders * Enh #217: Log to stdout using the `--log -` option Details ------- * Bugfix #230: Fix erroneous warnings about unsupported fsync Due to a regression in rest-server 0.12.0, it continuously printed `WARNING: fsync is not supported by the data storage. This can lead to data loss, if the system crashes or the storage is unexpectedly disconnected.` for systems that support fsync. We have fixed the warning. https://github.com/restic/rest-server/issues/230 https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/231 * Bugfix #238: API: Return empty array when listing empty folders Rest-server returned `null` when listing an empty folder. This has been changed to returning an empty array in accordance with the REST protocol specification. This change has no impact on restic users. https://github.com/restic/rest-server/issues/238 https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/239 * Enhancement #217: Log to stdout using the `--log -` option Logging to stdout was possible using `--log /dev/stdout`. However, when the rest server is run as a different user, for example, using `sudo -u restic rest-server [...] --log /dev/stdout` This did not work due to permission issues. For logging to stdout, the `--log` option now supports the special filename `-` which also works in these cases. https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/217 Changelog for rest-server 0.12.0 (2023-04-24) ============================================ The following sections list the changes in rest-server 0.12.0 relevant to users. The changes are ordered by importance. Summary ------- * Fix #183: Allow usernames containing underscore and more * Fix #219: Ignore unexpected files in the data/ folder * Fix #1871: Return 500 "Internal server error" if files cannot be read * Chg #207: Return error if command-line arguments are specified * Chg #208: Update dependencies and require Go 1.17 or newer * Enh #133: Cache basic authentication credentials * Enh #187: Allow configurable location for `.htpasswd` file Details ------- * Bugfix #183: Allow usernames containing underscore and more The security fix in rest-server 0.11.0 (#131) disallowed usernames containing and underscore "_". The list of allowed characters has now been changed to include Unicode characters, numbers, "_", "-", "." and "@". https://github.com/restic/rest-server/issues/183 https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/184 * Bugfix #219: Ignore unexpected files in the data/ folder If the data folder of a repository contained files, this would prevent restic from retrieving a list of file data files. This has been fixed. As a workaround remove the files that are directly contained in the data folder (e.g., `.DS_Store` files). https://github.com/restic/rest-server/issues/219 https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/221 * Bugfix #1871: Return 500 "Internal server error" if files cannot be read When files in a repository cannot be read by rest-server, for example after running `restic prune` directly on the server hosting the repositories in a way that causes filesystem permissions to be wrong, rest-server previously returned 404 "Not Found" as status code. This was causing confusing for users. The error handling has now been fixed to only return 404 "Not Found" if the file actually does not exist. Otherwise a 500 "Internal server error" is reported to the client and the underlying error is logged at the server side. https://github.com/restic/rest-server/issues/1871 https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/195 * Change #207: Return error if command-line arguments are specified Command line arguments are ignored by rest-server, but there was previously no indication of this when they were supplied anyway. To prevent usage errors an error is now printed when command line arguments are supplied, instead of them being silently ignored. https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/207 * Change #208: Update dependencies and require Go 1.17 or newer Most dependencies have been updated. Since some libraries require newer language features, support for Go 1.15-1.16 has been dropped, which means that rest-server now requires at least Go 1.17 to build. https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/208 * Enhancement #133: Cache basic authentication credentials To speed up the verification of basic auth credentials, rest-server now caches passwords for a minute in memory. That way the expensive verification of basic auth credentials can be skipped for most requests issued by a single restic run. The password is kept in memory in a hashed form and not as plaintext. https://github.com/restic/rest-server/issues/133 https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/138 * Enhancement #187: Allow configurable location for `.htpasswd` file It is now possible to specify the location of the `.htpasswd` file using the `--htpasswd-file` option. https://github.com/restic/rest-server/issues/187 https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/188 Changelog for rest-server 0.11.0 (2022-02-10) ============================================ The following sections list the changes in rest-server 0.11.0 relevant to users. The changes are ordered by importance. Summary ------- * Sec #131: Prevent loading of usernames containing a slash * Fix #119: Fix Docker configuration for `DISABLE_AUTHENTICATION` * Fix #142: Fix possible data loss due to interrupted network connections * Fix #155: Reply "insufficient storage" on disk full or over-quota * Fix #157: Use platform-specific temporary directory as default data directory * Chg #112: Add subrepo support and refactor server code * Chg #146: Build rest-server at docker container build time * Enh #122: Verify uploaded files * Enh #126: Allow running rest-server via systemd socket activation * Enh #148: Expand use of security features in example systemd unit file Details ------- * Security #131: Prevent loading of usernames containing a slash "/" is valid char in HTTP authorization headers, but is also used in rest-server to map usernames to private repos. This commit prevents loading maliciously composed usernames like "/foo/config" by restricting the allowed characters to the unicode character class, numbers, "-", "." and "@". This prevents requests to other users files like: Curl -v -X DELETE -u foo/config:attack http://localhost:8000/foo/config https://github.com/restic/rest-server/issues/131 https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/132 https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/137 * Bugfix #119: Fix Docker configuration for `DISABLE_AUTHENTICATION` Rest-server 0.10.0 introduced a regression which caused the `DISABLE_AUTHENTICATION` environment variable to stop working for the Docker container. This has been fixed by automatically setting the option `--no-auth` to disable authentication. https://github.com/restic/rest-server/issues/119 https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/124 * Bugfix #142: Fix possible data loss due to interrupted network connections When rest-server was run without `--append-only` it was possible to lose uploaded files in a specific scenario in which a network connection was interrupted. For the data loss to occur a file upload by restic would have to be interrupted such that restic notices the interrupted network connection before the rest-server. Then restic would have to retry the file upload and finish it before the rest-server notices that the initial upload has failed. Then the uploaded file would be accidentally removed by rest-server when trying to cleanup the failed upload. This has been fixed by always uploading to a temporary file first which is moved in position only once it was uploaded completely. https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/142 * Bugfix #155: Reply "insufficient storage" on disk full or over-quota When there was no space left on disk, or any other write-related error occurred, rest-server replied with HTTP status code 400 (Bad request). This is misleading (restic client will dump the status code to the user). Rest-server now replies with two different status codes in these situations: * HTTP 507 "Insufficient storage" is the status on disk full or repository over-quota * HTTP 500 "Internal server error" is used for other disk-related errors https://github.com/restic/rest-server/issues/155 https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/160 * Bugfix #157: Use platform-specific temporary directory as default data directory If no data directory is specificed, then rest-server now uses the Go standard library functions to retrieve the standard temporary directory path for the current platform. https://github.com/restic/rest-server/issues/157 https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/158 * Change #112: Add subrepo support and refactor server code Support for multi-level repositories has been added, so now each user can have its own subrepositories. This feature is always enabled. Authentication for the Prometheus /metrics endpoint can now be disabled with the new `--prometheus-no-auth` flag. We have split out all HTTP handling to a separate `repo` subpackage to cleanly separate the server code from the code that handles a single repository. The new RepoHandler also makes it easier to reuse rest-server as a Go component in any other HTTP server. The refactoring makes the code significantly easier to follow and understand, which in turn makes it easier to add new features, audit for security and debug issues. https://github.com/restic/rest-server/issues/109 https://github.com/restic/rest-server/issues/107 https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/112 * Change #146: Build rest-server at docker container build time The Dockerfile now includes a build stage such that the latest rest-server is always built and packaged. This is done in a standard golang container to ensure a clean build environment and only the final binary is shipped rather than the whole build environment. https://github.com/restic/rest-server/issues/146 https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/145 * Enhancement #122: Verify uploaded files The rest-server now by default verifies that the hash of content of uploaded files matches their filename. This ensures that transmission errors are detected and forces restic to retry the upload. On low-power devices it can make sense to disable this check by passing the `--no-verify-upload` flag. https://github.com/restic/rest-server/issues/122 https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/130 * Enhancement #126: Allow running rest-server via systemd socket activation We've added the option to have systemd create the listening socket and start the rest-server on demand. https://github.com/restic/rest-server/issues/126 https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/151 https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/127 * Enhancement #148: Expand use of security features in example systemd unit file The example systemd unit file now enables additional systemd features to mitigate potential security vulnerabilities in rest-server and the various packages and operating system components which it relies upon. https://github.com/restic/rest-server/issues/148 https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/149 Changelog for rest-server 0.10.0 (2020-09-13) ============================================ The following sections list the changes in rest-server 0.10.0 relevant to users. The changes are ordered by importance. Summary ------- * Sec #60: Require auth by default, add --no-auth flag * Sec #64: Refuse overwriting config file in append-only mode * Sec #117: Stricter path sanitization * Chg #102: Remove vendored dependencies * Enh #44: Add changelog file Details ------- * Security #60: Require auth by default, add --no-auth flag In order to prevent users from accidentally exposing rest-server without authentication, rest-server now defaults to requiring a .htpasswd. If you want to disable authentication, you need to explicitly pass the new --no-auth flag. https://github.com/restic/rest-server/issues/60 https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/61 * Security #64: Refuse overwriting config file in append-only mode While working on the `rclone serve restic` command we noticed that is currently possible to overwrite the config file in a repo even if `--append-only` is specified. The first commit adds proper tests, and the second commit fixes the issue. https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/64 * Security #117: Stricter path sanitization The framework we're using in rest-server to decode paths to repositories allowed specifying URL-encoded characters in paths, including sensitive characters such as `/` (encoded as `%2F`). We've changed this unintended behavior, such that rest-server now rejects such paths. In particular, it is no longer possible to specify sub-repositories for users by encoding the path with `%2F`, such as `http://localhost:8000/foo%2Fbar`, which means that this will unfortunately be a breaking change in that case. If using sub-repositories for users is important to you, please let us know in the forum, so we can learn about your use case and implement this properly. As it currently stands, the ability to use sub-repositories was an unintentional feature made possible by the URL decoding framework used, and hence never meant to be supported in the first place. If we wish to have this feature in rest-server, we'd like to have it implemented properly and intentionally. https://github.com/restic/rest-server/issues/117 * Change #102: Remove vendored dependencies We've removed the vendored dependencies (in the subdir `vendor/`) similar to what we did for `restic` itself. When building restic, the Go compiler automatically fetches the dependencies. It will also cryptographically verify that the correct code has been fetched by using the hashes in `go.sum` (see the link to the documentation below). Building the rest-server now requires Go 1.11 or newer, since we're using Go Modules for dependency management. Older Go versions are not supported any more. https://github.com/restic/rest-server/issues/102 https://golang.org/cmd/go/#hdr-Module_downloading_and_verification * Enhancement #44: Add changelog file https://github.com/restic/rest-server/issues/44 https://github.com/restic/rest-server/pull/62