10 ms·

Show HN: Relica – Cross-platform local, remote, and multi-cloud file backups

132 points by mholt 8y ago

newtisinal 8y ago
May I ask who is it that has made this? Looking through the website and twitter but unable to find any humans attached to the project. I do appreciate how it says a human will read a response to any of their automated emails.
- detaro 8y ago
  Bit ironic response to a "Show HN" post made by a clearly identifiable human, isn't it? EDIT: https://www.lightcodelabs.com/ https://www.lightcodelabs.com/ lists a second person
- yroc92 8y ago
  Hi, I'm Cory. I worked with Matt (who introduced himself above) to make Relica. I can confirm that two humans are attached to this project.
mholt 8y ago
Hey HN! I started working on this after my old cloud backup service (CrashPlan) announced they were discontinuing their Home product. My cofounder Cory and I built this to meet our own needs, and also for our families to use, most of whom are non-technical. We're working really hard to make Relica the best backup solution for a broad range of consumers, from everyday users to more technical professionals with specific needs. Besides ourselves, my mother and my brother are among Relica's first users. We're really excited to share the beginning of our product! I'm personally a bit terrified, too. :) We have a lot of great features planned, besides the ones we've already implemented. (Coming soon: back up to your own cloud destinations such as your own S3 account or SFTP destinations.) Feel free to sign up, give it a spin, share your referral link with others to get discounts, and let us know what you think!
- elefantastisch 8y ago
  Can I sign up somewhere to get notified when "back up to your own cloud destinations" is complete? This is all I want in a backup service. Install on all my devices (this must include mobile devices too), send everything I care about to as many destinations as I provide, all of which I manage myself. As great as cloud backup solutions are, the weak point is always getting things out. If I can just have it in my own S3 bucket, I can do absolutely anything I like with my files. Count me as very interested if this is where you're going. Also, trust and security are going to be huge. How do I know you're not going to leak and / or abuse the depth of access you get by owning my backups?
  - yroc92 8y ago
    Great questions! > Can I sign up somewhere to get notified when "back up to your own cloud destinations" is complete? If you edit your backup, you can create a custom hook (https://relicabackup.com/docs/backup-hooks https://relicabackup.com/docs/backup-hooks). We plan to implement email notifications when such events occur as well. > As great as cloud backup solutions are, the weak point is always getting things out. We're implementing "Bring your own cloud" now, so you can provide your own S3-compatible, SFTP, Azure, or Google storage (more to come). This feature is almost done. > Also, trust and security are going to be huge. Backups are encrypted on the client, and the key is kept on your local device (don't lose it!). We can't access your data, and even your file selection is encrypted.
    - iliaznk 8y ago
      It seems to me that the "Can I sign up somewhere to get notified when "back up to your own cloud destinations" is complete?" actually implied if there's a way to get notified when the "Bring your own cloud" feature is complete and in production so that we can give your service a test then. If I guessed that wrong, then anyway please answer because I want to know that too. Thanks!
      - mholt 8y ago
        Oh. :) That makes sense. We're in the process of setting up a mailing list - in the meantime, can you drop us a quick email at support@relicabackup.com and we'll make sure to send you a notification when this feature is ready?
mmmeff 8y ago
I don't understand what the base price is supposed to cover... Why would I pay you $60/year to back up my files to thumb drives and friends' computers?
- mholt 8y ago
  That's the membership subscription: unlimited backups to local and remote (meaning "peer" or other computers) destinations, automatic software updates, and for as many devices as you have. Some backup services (especially those with unlimited offerings) limit you to just one or two computers. And your membership subscription can become free if you refer others each year (they also get a discount). 3 referrals per year will keep your membership totally free.
- cpach 8y ago
  ”Why would I pay you $60/year to back up my files to thumb drives and friends' computers?” Isn’t that kinda obvious? What you pay for is the ability for the developers to continue refining the application and keep adding useful features. Sounds reasonable to me at least.
  - WorldMaker 8y ago
    But it also leaves you susceptible to potential pivots in the business plan if the developers decide that base fee isn't enough or isn't generating enough income. The benefit to an ownership model in this case, particularly with "bring your own cloud" is that at least you have some immunity if the developers stop refining the application. This is more than just a hypothetical. One of the mentioned reasons for this application was the shutdown of CrashPlan for home users. Using a similar monthly fee plan doesn't show any more resilience than the service they are trying to replace. What's the likelihood that the same market realities that pushed CrashPlan to shut down such services don't also impact them? More personally anecdotally, I bought a "bring your own cloud" multi-cloud backup tool many years ago. I still use it, even through several terrible pivots, because the core software has been stable/consistent/well-enough maintained at the time. They were bought by a cloud provider and dropped "bring your own cloud" and "multi-cloud" from their main focused products. They spun back out and are trying to be business-focused SaaS-only similar to CrashPlan's recent pivot. Neither of those pivots have been to my advantage, but again, for now, the original desktop application I bought all those years ago still works great. Had I opted for one of the more monthly paid SaaS products in either of those pivots, I would have been much worse off with each pivot. Unfortunately, there's also no way that I can recommend people buy a product like mine because they no longer sell it in that manner (and haven't in years), and it's incredibly tough to avoid the SaaS business model in the backup space, but backup is one of the areas where such business models and safety from pivots is extremely important and the SaaS model seems almost to guarantee that pivots will happen.
Ixiaus 8y ago
I'm really interested in this. I liked and used CrashPlan for some time but have had a sub-par backup setup since they shuttered their home-user business.
- mholt 8y ago
  Great - we look forward to serving you! Feel free to get in touch if you have any feedback.
stephenr 8y ago
The sales page claims that data can be restored using https://github.com/restic/restic https://github.com/restic/restic. It seems like a pretty safe bet then, that this is a web interface on top of restic.
- mholt 8y ago
  Yes, we've been making contributions to restic for some time because we have been very happy with restic's stability, capabilities, and cross-platform support. In fact, the initial plan was to "just" create a web UI for restic, but then we decided to bring it full circle and make it a consumer product so that our families and friends could migrate off their backup service which was being discontinued.
Zaheer 8y ago
Notable competitor: Arq (https://www.arqbackup.com/ https://www.arqbackup.com/). Part of the reason I prefer Arq is that there's no monthly fees on the tool itself. I own my backup data wherever I choose to send it to (S3, Google Cloud, etc).
- mholt 8y ago
  Yes! Arq was one part of inspiration for Relica. However, we wanted something more accessible for our non-technical family members. Also, Relica can back up to multiple cloud services with just a single upload of your data, whereas I believe with Arq it's one upload per cloud destination, lending itself to up to 5x faster backups. This is through our Relica Cloud destination which is optional for all users. Relica technically already supports "bring your own cloud" (your own S3, Google Cloud, SFTP, etc - many others) but is still undocumented as we finish its implementation in the UI. And your Relica membership can be made essentially free if you refer just a few people each year.
- cpach 8y ago
  As an Arq user I don’t trust it anymore after it suddenly ceased to show my old backups in the GUI.
  - locacorten 8y ago
    Can you provide more details? I'm also an Arq user and haven't noticed any problems.
  - sreitshamer 8y ago
    I'd love to know more about this too (I'm the lead developer on Arq). Please email support@arqbackup.com with details if you don't want to post here. Thank you!
    - cpach 8y ago
      I have already mailed you. There was no fix unfortunately.
abeisgreat 8y ago
This is made by Matt Holt, a talented but anti-lgbt software engineer. If you're like me and like to put your money where your values are then please carefully consider this.
- googletron 8y ago
  details here on this? big claims!
  - abeisgreat 8y ago
    You can read our exchange on Twitter - https://twitter.com/abeisgreat/status/1009317897112453120 https://twitter.com/abeisgreat/status/1009317897112453120). I want to be clear, I have nothing against his work, technically he does great stuff, especially in the Go community. However, I can't in good faith support a company he's building when I feel confident that he will be reinforcing the structure which harms minorities (of all kinds) in tech. If you consider my analysis of his responses to be unfair, keep in mind that Matt is an active member of The Church of Latter-day Saints. The LDS church does not explicitly ban LGBT members, however it does ban sex outside of marriage and only acknowledges opposite-sex marriages (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_and_The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_and_The_Church_o...).
    - mholt 8y ago
      EDIT: You drastically edited your comment; see my addendum at the end. Alright, I only barely remember this, but let's break this down anyway, because this is 1) mostly false, 2) obviously very important to you, and I'm sorry but I don't know who you are so you will have to help me understand where you're coming from, and 3) way more dramatic than it really was. I complained once on Twitter about a particular instance of technical tooling being modified to align with certain societal/political viewpoints, which I found distracting from the purpose of the tool. In this case, it temporarily lowered my productivity (requiring me to click and scroll back through to view previous terminal output, which was not required before). The tweet made no mention of which service was being referenced, nor did it make any reference at all to the type of issue or topic that the tool was vocal about. The point of the tweet had nothing to do with the issue itself, but it was a complaint about a UX issue I had with a technical tool. When asked for more details by another commenter, I replied that I refused to give more information since I didn't want to start an argument: again, the point was not the specific topic of the message. > When I confronted him, he said he didn't think companies should "get political" and claimed he didn't have anything against Pride, At no point did you confront me, @abeisgreat. Instead, you replied to the other commenter assuming to know my heart on the matter and made claims about my opinions and feelings and background that are simply untrue -- claims which I had never made myself, nor could you substantiate except through extrapolation, mincing my words, or taking them out of context. This comment thread here on HN is continuing that trend. That all happened several months ago. Are you really still convinced that your self-assumed attitudes against me are correct? You never even bothered to ask me what I was talking about, or what my feelings on the matter really are. > but was annoyed with it impacting his work - which seems suspicious because he is definitely Mormon and very conservative. I don't know what my work ethic has to do with being "Mormon" (member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) or "conservative" (yes, I tend to be more conservative). > he will be reinforcing the structure which harms minorities (of all kinds) in tech. You forget too that I am a minority in tech myself. The last thing I have is any feelings of enmity or bias against others who also feel they are on the outside or have non-conforming beliefs or values. After all, that's my whole life. You think being a practicing Latter-day Saint in the wildly-liberal and "progressive" tech community these days is easy? that every other person shares my core beliefs? that everyone appreciates and understands my choice of lifestyle? I am not that much different from you... I don't know why you choose to hold this grudge against me, or why you read so much into so little, but next time, let's talk about it rather than draw conclusions. EDIT: My addendum, in light of significant edits to the original comment. > If you consider my analysis of his responses to be unfair, keep in mind that Matt is an active member of The Church of Latter-day Saints. The LDS church does not explicitly ban LGBT members, however it does ban sex outside of marriage and only acknowledges opposite-sex marriages (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_and_The_Church_o... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_and_The_Church_o...). I'm glad you brought this up. Like you, I'm proud of the way I live, which is as an active member of Jesus Christ's Church. Ask me anything. (Also, check out https://mormonandgay.lds.org/ https://mormonandgay.lds.org/ -- a great resource about these types of issues.)
deathero 8y ago
hey matt, really love caddy server and this new service you created but one question, since you are using an open source backup tool which is restic, would you be willing to open source the web ui for the restic community? so others can self host or even be able to use restic alot easier? i love using restic but i think having an open source web ui would be nice to have.
- mholt 8y ago
  Hey, glad you like Caddy. I know of a couple efforts, either talked about or under way, to make an open source web UI for restic. One is a PR to add a sort of API to restic: https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/1963 https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/1963 -- and another is here: https://gitlab.simbookee.com/andi/restic-gui.git https://gitlab.simbookee.com/andi/restic-gui.git
locacorten 8y ago
Nice job. I'm a little skeptical though -- I think the devil is in the details. It's a lot of work to make a highly reliable backup program. As a Windows user, here's a list of questions I'd ask: 1. Does Relica work with OneDrive on-demand files? [1] 2. Does Relica work with WSL files? [2] Supporting all these corner cases on Windows, Mac, and Linux will be a TON of work. [1]: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/learn-about-onedrive-files-on-demand-0e6860d3-d9f3-4971-b321-7092438fb38e https://support.office.com/en-us/article/learn-about-onedriv... [2]: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/wsl/2016/06/15/wsl-file-system-support/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/wsl/2016/06/15/wsl-file-sys...
- mholt 8y ago
  Thanks for bringing up the hard questions. We have not yet made special considerations for OneDrive on-demand files or WSL files. Indeed, they require a lot of work. (I've been learning that, I think, Windows has a lot more edge cases than Linux does, in general... Windows has definitely been more difficult to develop for.) So yeah, it's a lot of work. I know that there are major performance and correctness issues when dealing with OneDrive mounted storage and the equivalent for other sync services. Still, I've added your feedback to our list. Thanks!
- sreitshamer 8y ago
  What's your expectation with OneDrive on-demand files?
  - locacorten 8y ago
    For any files, my expectation of a backup program is that Restore(Backup(FS)) == FS, where FS is the state of my file system.
Heliosmaster 8y ago
Great job! Any plans on doing a Docker version? What about integration with some brand of NAS (e.g. Synology?)
- mholt 8y ago
  No plans for containers at this time, sorry -- would you mind elaborating what you have in mind or how that would work? As for NAS integration, that'd be really cool -- I don't really know what is involved to make that happen but it's something we're going to look into!
  - bradknowles 8y ago
    Well, docker containers is how you would get on Synology. ;)
techntoke 8y ago
rclone does this for free already, is lighter and works with more cloud providers.
- mholt 8y ago
  Sorry, but rclone does not do what Relica does. :) And soon Relica will do at least some of what rclone does, and to nearly as many cloud providers.
  - codegladiator 8y ago
    You should just have mentioned that this tool is built on top of rclone. It's not a bad thing to give credit.
    - francislavoie 8y ago
      It's built on top of restic, not rclone.
      - yroc92 8y ago
        rclone and Restic are both used in Relica. They're both amazing projects and we've been working with their communities to improve them!
    - mholt 8y ago
      We do give credit in the licenses file. The reason we don't mention it on the site yet is because Relica currently ships with rclone but we do not use it, yet. We will be using it once we flip the switch to activate some new features soon! We've also made a few contributions to rclone and restic so all the work we do on open source projects is available upstream to the main project's users.
jonotime 8y ago
Very interesting project which I will be following. Linux user here who had to roll my own after CrashPlan. I went with Duplicati and Backblaze because the combo was cheap and had a web/linux client. Could I recommend allowing Backblaze for storage since its cheaper then S3? It looks like restic already supports B2.
- mholt 8y ago
  Yes, coming soon! Relica already supports this capability (it is undocumented) -- we are just finishing it up in the UI. It's our #1 request so far. And although we may not start out with so many, Relica will be able to support about a dozen different backend storage types before the end.
thebiglebrewski 8y ago
Amazing that you're doing this! I've been looking for something new for a while. How well does this work for developers? I had to stop using Dropbox because NPM/Yarn seems to do too many symlinks for Dropbox to understand and it never stopped syncing. I then tried to switch to Google Drive backup but THEIR BACKUP + SYNC APP KILLS MY MACHINE because it's a huge memory hog. I have to kill it/restart ever since going there so now I'm looking to get off of this Google Monster. I'd be excited to try your service but would love an answer to the above! Also, how does restore work? Your FAQ/docs are pretty light on screenshots of the actual software. Good luck!
- mholt 8y ago
  Thanks for the comments! As you can see why, we don't recommend using file sync software for backups. Relica can handle symlinks just fine: it preserves them, not follows them. Restore works well also, it just runs in the background. Pretty simple right now, but we're actively participating in contributing to restic to make restores more interactive in the sense of progress reporting. We are not focusing on screenshots right now so we can revamp the UI, and we have some good ideas for restores, so you'll see it changing here in the next few months. Anyway, we'd love for you to give it a try! Feel free to email us with any other feedback.
  - thebiglebrewski 8y ago
    Thanks for your reply! Let's say my entire computer is lost or stolen. What's the best way to restore? Can I restore my entire disk image? Or does Relica just backup individual files, meaning I'd have to repopuplate my environment, then use Relica to bring back files? Does Relica use one directory like Dropbox by default or does it backup my whole machine?
    - mholt 8y ago
      Good questions. I should add some of these to our FAQ. Relica does file backup, not disk imaging -- for various reasons. So you'll install Relica and restore the files either on your new computer, or just log into the website (without needing to install Relica) and download a restore file --- that web restore feature is coming soon; we just got it working in dev last week. :) You can back up all the files your user has access to with Relica. You can actually run it as root (on Linux) but we need to write a how-to for that, since it unfortunately requires disabling automatic upgrades for now. We'll work on making it more flexible for these use cases once we've got the basics more covered.

132 points by mholt 8y ago

May I ask who is it that has made this? Looking through the website and twitter but unable to find any humans attached to the project. I do appreciate how it says a human will read a response to any of their automated emails.

detaro 8y ago
Bit ironic response to a "Show HN" post made by a clearly identifiable human, isn't it? EDIT: https://www.lightcodelabs.com/ https://www.lightcodelabs.com/ lists a second person
yroc92 8y ago
Hi, I'm Cory. I worked with Matt (who introduced himself above) to make Relica. I can confirm that two humans are attached to this project.

mholt 8y ago

Hey HN! I started working on this after my old cloud backup service (CrashPlan) announced they were discontinuing their Home product. My cofounder Cory and I built this to meet our own needs, and also for our families to use, most of whom are non-technical. We're working really hard to make Relica the best backup solution for a broad range of consumers, from everyday users to more technical professionals with specific needs. Besides ourselves, my mother and my brother are among Relica's first users. We're really excited to share the beginning of our product! I'm personally a bit terrified, too. :) We have a lot of great features planned, besides the ones we've already implemented. (Coming soon: back up to your own cloud destinations such as your own S3 account or SFTP destinations.) Feel free to sign up, give it a spin, share your referral link with others to get discounts, and let us know what you think!

elefantastisch 8y ago
Can I sign up somewhere to get notified when "back up to your own cloud destinations" is complete? This is all I want in a backup service. Install on all my devices (this must include mobile devices too), send everything I care about to as many destinations as I provide, all of which I manage myself. As great as cloud backup solutions are, the weak point is always getting things out. If I can just have it in my own S3 bucket, I can do absolutely anything I like with my files. Count me as very interested if this is where you're going. Also, trust and security are going to be huge. How do I know you're not going to leak and / or abuse the depth of access you get by owning my backups?
- yroc92 8y ago
  Great questions! > Can I sign up somewhere to get notified when "back up to your own cloud destinations" is complete? If you edit your backup, you can create a custom hook (https://relicabackup.com/docs/backup-hooks https://relicabackup.com/docs/backup-hooks). We plan to implement email notifications when such events occur as well. > As great as cloud backup solutions are, the weak point is always getting things out. We're implementing "Bring your own cloud" now, so you can provide your own S3-compatible, SFTP, Azure, or Google storage (more to come). This feature is almost done. > Also, trust and security are going to be huge. Backups are encrypted on the client, and the key is kept on your local device (don't lose it!). We can't access your data, and even your file selection is encrypted.
  - iliaznk 8y ago
    It seems to me that the "Can I sign up somewhere to get notified when "back up to your own cloud destinations" is complete?" actually implied if there's a way to get notified when the "Bring your own cloud" feature is complete and in production so that we can give your service a test then. If I guessed that wrong, then anyway please answer because I want to know that too. Thanks!
    - mholt 8y ago
      Oh. :) That makes sense. We're in the process of setting up a mailing list - in the meantime, can you drop us a quick email at support@relicabackup.com and we'll make sure to send you a notification when this feature is ready?

mmmeff 8y ago

I don't understand what the base price is supposed to cover... Why would I pay you $60/year to back up my files to thumb drives and friends' computers?

mholt 8y ago
That's the membership subscription: unlimited backups to local and remote (meaning "peer" or other computers) destinations, automatic software updates, and for as many devices as you have. Some backup services (especially those with unlimited offerings) limit you to just one or two computers. And your membership subscription can become free if you refer others each year (they also get a discount). 3 referrals per year will keep your membership totally free.
cpach 8y ago
”Why would I pay you $60/year to back up my files to thumb drives and friends' computers?” Isn’t that kinda obvious? What you pay for is the ability for the developers to continue refining the application and keep adding useful features. Sounds reasonable to me at least.
- WorldMaker 8y ago
  But it also leaves you susceptible to potential pivots in the business plan if the developers decide that base fee isn't enough or isn't generating enough income. The benefit to an ownership model in this case, particularly with "bring your own cloud" is that at least you have some immunity if the developers stop refining the application. This is more than just a hypothetical. One of the mentioned reasons for this application was the shutdown of CrashPlan for home users. Using a similar monthly fee plan doesn't show any more resilience than the service they are trying to replace. What's the likelihood that the same market realities that pushed CrashPlan to shut down such services don't also impact them? More personally anecdotally, I bought a "bring your own cloud" multi-cloud backup tool many years ago. I still use it, even through several terrible pivots, because the core software has been stable/consistent/well-enough maintained at the time. They were bought by a cloud provider and dropped "bring your own cloud" and "multi-cloud" from their main focused products. They spun back out and are trying to be business-focused SaaS-only similar to CrashPlan's recent pivot. Neither of those pivots have been to my advantage, but again, for now, the original desktop application I bought all those years ago still works great. Had I opted for one of the more monthly paid SaaS products in either of those pivots, I would have been much worse off with each pivot. Unfortunately, there's also no way that I can recommend people buy a product like mine because they no longer sell it in that manner (and haven't in years), and it's incredibly tough to avoid the SaaS business model in the backup space, but backup is one of the areas where such business models and safety from pivots is extremely important and the SaaS model seems almost to guarantee that pivots will happen.

Ixiaus 8y ago

I'm really interested in this. I liked and used CrashPlan for some time but have had a sub-par backup setup since they shuttered their home-user business.

mholt 8y ago
Great - we look forward to serving you! Feel free to get in touch if you have any feedback.

stephenr 8y ago

The sales page claims that data can be restored using https://github.com/restic/restic https://github.com/restic/restic. It seems like a pretty safe bet then, that this is a web interface on top of restic.

mholt 8y ago
Yes, we've been making contributions to restic for some time because we have been very happy with restic's stability, capabilities, and cross-platform support. In fact, the initial plan was to "just" create a web UI for restic, but then we decided to bring it full circle and make it a consumer product so that our families and friends could migrate off their backup service which was being discontinued.

Zaheer 8y ago

Notable competitor: Arq (https://www.arqbackup.com/ https://www.arqbackup.com/). Part of the reason I prefer Arq is that there's no monthly fees on the tool itself. I own my backup data wherever I choose to send it to (S3, Google Cloud, etc).

mholt 8y ago
Yes! Arq was one part of inspiration for Relica. However, we wanted something more accessible for our non-technical family members. Also, Relica can back up to multiple cloud services with just a single upload of your data, whereas I believe with Arq it's one upload per cloud destination, lending itself to up to 5x faster backups. This is through our Relica Cloud destination which is optional for all users. Relica technically already supports "bring your own cloud" (your own S3, Google Cloud, SFTP, etc - many others) but is still undocumented as we finish its implementation in the UI. And your Relica membership can be made essentially free if you refer just a few people each year.
cpach 8y ago
As an Arq user I don’t trust it anymore after it suddenly ceased to show my old backups in the GUI.
- locacorten 8y ago
  Can you provide more details? I'm also an Arq user and haven't noticed any problems.
- sreitshamer 8y ago
  I'd love to know more about this too (I'm the lead developer on Arq). Please email support@arqbackup.com with details if you don't want to post here. Thank you!
  - cpach 8y ago
    I have already mailed you. There was no fix unfortunately.

abeisgreat 8y ago

This is made by Matt Holt, a talented but anti-lgbt software engineer. If you're like me and like to put your money where your values are then please carefully consider this.

googletron 8y ago
details here on this? big claims!
- abeisgreat 8y ago
  You can read our exchange on Twitter - https://twitter.com/abeisgreat/status/1009317897112453120 https://twitter.com/abeisgreat/status/1009317897112453120). I want to be clear, I have nothing against his work, technically he does great stuff, especially in the Go community. However, I can't in good faith support a company he's building when I feel confident that he will be reinforcing the structure which harms minorities (of all kinds) in tech. If you consider my analysis of his responses to be unfair, keep in mind that Matt is an active member of The Church of Latter-day Saints. The LDS church does not explicitly ban LGBT members, however it does ban sex outside of marriage and only acknowledges opposite-sex marriages (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_and_The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_and_The_Church_o...).
  - mholt 8y ago
    EDIT: You drastically edited your comment; see my addendum at the end. Alright, I only barely remember this, but let's break this down anyway, because this is 1) mostly false, 2) obviously very important to you, and I'm sorry but I don't know who you are so you will have to help me understand where you're coming from, and 3) way more dramatic than it really was. I complained once on Twitter about a particular instance of technical tooling being modified to align with certain societal/political viewpoints, which I found distracting from the purpose of the tool. In this case, it temporarily lowered my productivity (requiring me to click and scroll back through to view previous terminal output, which was not required before). The tweet made no mention of which service was being referenced, nor did it make any reference at all to the type of issue or topic that the tool was vocal about. The point of the tweet had nothing to do with the issue itself, but it was a complaint about a UX issue I had with a technical tool. When asked for more details by another commenter, I replied that I refused to give more information since I didn't want to start an argument: again, the point was not the specific topic of the message. > When I confronted him, he said he didn't think companies should "get political" and claimed he didn't have anything against Pride, At no point did you confront me, @abeisgreat. Instead, you replied to the other commenter assuming to know my heart on the matter and made claims about my opinions and feelings and background that are simply untrue -- claims which I had never made myself, nor could you substantiate except through extrapolation, mincing my words, or taking them out of context. This comment thread here on HN is continuing that trend. That all happened several months ago. Are you really still convinced that your self-assumed attitudes against me are correct? You never even bothered to ask me what I was talking about, or what my feelings on the matter really are. > but was annoyed with it impacting his work - which seems suspicious because he is definitely Mormon and very conservative. I don't know what my work ethic has to do with being "Mormon" (member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) or "conservative" (yes, I tend to be more conservative). > he will be reinforcing the structure which harms minorities (of all kinds) in tech. You forget too that I am a minority in tech myself. The last thing I have is any feelings of enmity or bias against others who also feel they are on the outside or have non-conforming beliefs or values. After all, that's my whole life. You think being a practicing Latter-day Saint in the wildly-liberal and "progressive" tech community these days is easy? that every other person shares my core beliefs? that everyone appreciates and understands my choice of lifestyle? I am not that much different from you... I don't know why you choose to hold this grudge against me, or why you read so much into so little, but next time, let's talk about it rather than draw conclusions. EDIT: My addendum, in light of significant edits to the original comment. > If you consider my analysis of his responses to be unfair, keep in mind that Matt is an active member of The Church of Latter-day Saints. The LDS church does not explicitly ban LGBT members, however it does ban sex outside of marriage and only acknowledges opposite-sex marriages (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_and_The_Church_o... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_and_The_Church_o...). I'm glad you brought this up. Like you, I'm proud of the way I live, which is as an active member of Jesus Christ's Church. Ask me anything. (Also, check out https://mormonandgay.lds.org/ https://mormonandgay.lds.org/ -- a great resource about these types of issues.)

deathero 8y ago

hey matt, really love caddy server and this new service you created but one question, since you are using an open source backup tool which is restic, would you be willing to open source the web ui for the restic community? so others can self host or even be able to use restic alot easier? i love using restic but i think having an open source web ui would be nice to have.

mholt 8y ago
Hey, glad you like Caddy. I know of a couple efforts, either talked about or under way, to make an open source web UI for restic. One is a PR to add a sort of API to restic: https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/1963 https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/1963 -- and another is here: https://gitlab.simbookee.com/andi/restic-gui.git https://gitlab.simbookee.com/andi/restic-gui.git

locacorten 8y ago

Nice job. I'm a little skeptical though -- I think the devil is in the details. It's a lot of work to make a highly reliable backup program. As a Windows user, here's a list of questions I'd ask: 1. Does Relica work with OneDrive on-demand files? [1] 2. Does Relica work with WSL files? [2] Supporting all these corner cases on Windows, Mac, and Linux will be a TON of work. [1]: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/learn-about-onedrive-files-on-demand-0e6860d3-d9f3-4971-b321-7092438fb38e https://support.office.com/en-us/article/learn-about-onedriv... [2]: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/wsl/2016/06/15/wsl-file-system-support/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/wsl/2016/06/15/wsl-file-sys...

mholt 8y ago
Thanks for bringing up the hard questions. We have not yet made special considerations for OneDrive on-demand files or WSL files. Indeed, they require a lot of work. (I've been learning that, I think, Windows has a lot more edge cases than Linux does, in general... Windows has definitely been more difficult to develop for.) So yeah, it's a lot of work. I know that there are major performance and correctness issues when dealing with OneDrive mounted storage and the equivalent for other sync services. Still, I've added your feedback to our list. Thanks!
sreitshamer 8y ago
What's your expectation with OneDrive on-demand files?
- locacorten 8y ago
  For any files, my expectation of a backup program is that Restore(Backup(FS)) == FS, where FS is the state of my file system.

Heliosmaster 8y ago

Great job! Any plans on doing a Docker version? What about integration with some brand of NAS (e.g. Synology?)

mholt 8y ago
No plans for containers at this time, sorry -- would you mind elaborating what you have in mind or how that would work? As for NAS integration, that'd be really cool -- I don't really know what is involved to make that happen but it's something we're going to look into!
- bradknowles 8y ago
  Well, docker containers is how you would get on Synology. ;)

techntoke 8y ago

rclone does this for free already, is lighter and works with more cloud providers.

mholt 8y ago
Sorry, but rclone does not do what Relica does. :) And soon Relica will do at least some of what rclone does, and to nearly as many cloud providers.
- codegladiator 8y ago
  You should just have mentioned that this tool is built on top of rclone. It's not a bad thing to give credit.
  - francislavoie 8y ago
    It's built on top of restic, not rclone.
    - yroc92 8y ago
      rclone and Restic are both used in Relica. They're both amazing projects and we've been working with their communities to improve them!
  - mholt 8y ago
    We do give credit in the licenses file. The reason we don't mention it on the site yet is because Relica currently ships with rclone but we do not use it, yet. We will be using it once we flip the switch to activate some new features soon! We've also made a few contributions to rclone and restic so all the work we do on open source projects is available upstream to the main project's users.

jonotime 8y ago

Very interesting project which I will be following. Linux user here who had to roll my own after CrashPlan. I went with Duplicati and Backblaze because the combo was cheap and had a web/linux client. Could I recommend allowing Backblaze for storage since its cheaper then S3? It looks like restic already supports B2.

mholt 8y ago
Yes, coming soon! Relica already supports this capability (it is undocumented) -- we are just finishing it up in the UI. It's our #1 request so far. And although we may not start out with so many, Relica will be able to support about a dozen different backend storage types before the end.

thebiglebrewski 8y ago

Amazing that you're doing this! I've been looking for something new for a while. How well does this work for developers? I had to stop using Dropbox because NPM/Yarn seems to do too many symlinks for Dropbox to understand and it never stopped syncing. I then tried to switch to Google Drive backup but THEIR BACKUP + SYNC APP KILLS MY MACHINE because it's a huge memory hog. I have to kill it/restart ever since going there so now I'm looking to get off of this Google Monster. I'd be excited to try your service but would love an answer to the above! Also, how does restore work? Your FAQ/docs are pretty light on screenshots of the actual software. Good luck!

mholt 8y ago
Thanks for the comments! As you can see why, we don't recommend using file sync software for backups. Relica can handle symlinks just fine: it preserves them, not follows them. Restore works well also, it just runs in the background. Pretty simple right now, but we're actively participating in contributing to restic to make restores more interactive in the sense of progress reporting. We are not focusing on screenshots right now so we can revamp the UI, and we have some good ideas for restores, so you'll see it changing here in the next few months. Anyway, we'd love for you to give it a try! Feel free to email us with any other feedback.
- thebiglebrewski 8y ago
  Thanks for your reply! Let's say my entire computer is lost or stolen. What's the best way to restore? Can I restore my entire disk image? Or does Relica just backup individual files, meaning I'd have to repopuplate my environment, then use Relica to bring back files? Does Relica use one directory like Dropbox by default or does it backup my whole machine?
  - mholt 8y ago
    Good questions. I should add some of these to our FAQ. Relica does file backup, not disk imaging -- for various reasons. So you'll install Relica and restore the files either on your new computer, or just log into the website (without needing to install Relica) and download a restore file --- that web restore feature is coming soon; we just got it working in dev last week. :) You can back up all the files your user has access to with Relica. You can actually run it as root (on Linux) but we need to write a how-to for that, since it unfortunately requires disabling automatic upgrades for now. We'll work on making it more flexible for these use cases once we've got the basics more covered.