restic not found and not downloaded from GitHub; doc mismatches error

[tredondo]

Describe the bug
The documentation claims that if the restic binary isn't found, it will be downloaded from GitHub releases. I've found this to not be the case.

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Go to http://localhost:9898/#/getting-started
2. Click on 'Add Repo'
3. Enter an S3 repo
4. Click "Test configuration"

The following error pops up:

Check error: : [unknown] command "/root/.local/share/backrest/restic cat config -o sftp.args=-oBatchMode=yes" failed: fork/exec /root/.local/share/backrest/restic: no such file or directory

Expected behavior

1. Could Backrest search for restic (or restic-{VERSION} in $PATH, instead of in the two hardcoded locations mentioned in Binary Management?

2. Can there be an initial screen setting up restic, before the user wastes time configuring a repo, only to find out restic wasn't detected?

3. I had moved restic to /bin/ and renamed it as described at Binary Management. But the error above only listed /root/.local/share/backrest/restic, not /bin/.

$ /bin/restic-0.18.0 version
restic 0.18.0 compiled with go1.24.1 on linux/amd64

4. Also, the error shows that Backrest is looking for restic, not for restic-{$VERSION} as the documentation claims.

Am I doing something stupid here? How can onboarding be so broken?

Screenshots

Platform Info

• OS and Architecture Linux x64
• Backrest Version 1.8.0

[garethgeorge]

Submitted ceeaad4 which makes some improvements to the installer (which was fairly unpleasant before). You're right to expect that restic should be getting installed. The new logic should be more robust.

As a workaround you can manually install restic, and then set BACKREST_RESTIC_PATH=$(which restic) to make this explicit for the time being.

Additionally went ahead and updated the docs. The restic-$VERSION binaries are from earlier versions of backrest, going forward backrest will always use a binary named restic whether found on the $PATH or as installed in its data directory.

The version is checked by the actual restic version output.