Question 1

What is Zerobyte and how does it work with restic?

Accepted Answer

Zerobyte is basically a backup solution with a GUI that uses restic on the backend. The reason I’m into it is you get the power of restic without living in the terminal all day. You can actually see jobs, progress, and what’s being backed up from a web interface.

Question 2

How do I install Zerobyte with Docker Compose?

Accepted Answer

I used the docker-compose.yml from the Zerobyte GitHub because that’s the quickest path. On my Oracle Linux 8 VM I added the Docker CE repo, installed Docker, started/enabled it, then ran `docker compose up -d`. By default it comes up on port 4096.

Question 3

What port does Zerobyte run on and can I use HTTPS?

Accepted Answer

Out of the box, Zerobyte is listening on 4096. If you want TLS, you can stick it behind something like Nginx and reverse proxy to that port. In the video I keep it simple and just hit the service directly.

Question 4

What’s the difference between Volumes and Repositories in Zerobyte?

Accepted Answer

Volumes are your sources—what you want to back up (like a directory, NFS share, Samba share, etc.). Repositories are the destinations—where those backups get stored (local, S3, R2, GCS, SFTP, rclone targets). Once you have both, you create a backup job that ties them together.

Question 5

Is backing up to a local repository a good idea for a homelab?

Accepted Answer

For a demo it’s fine, and it’s the fastest way to show the workflow. But if you’re trying to do a real 3-2-1 backup strategy, local-on-the-same-box isn’t great because you’re not really protecting against host failure. I’d lean toward S3/R2/GCS or even SFTP to another server you own.

Question 6

Can Zerobyte back up only specific folders or files?

Accepted Answer

Yeah, and this is one of the coolest parts: you can click through and select exactly what you want to include. You can grab a whole directory or just a single file, and it’ll handle the include patterns for you. If you want, you can still do includes/excludes manually.

Question 7

How do retention policies work in Zerobyte backups?

Accepted Answer

When you create a job, you can set retention so you’re not keeping infinite snapshots forever. If you only want a small number of snapshots, you can cap it, or keep more if you need longer history. The real limiter is disk space, so set retention based on what you can actually store.

Question 8

Does Zerobyte restore actually work?

Accepted Answer

I tested it in the video by changing a file, running another backup, and then restoring an older snapshot back to the original location. The UI lets you restore to the original path or a custom path if you want to compare versions. My restore worked and the file content rolled back like it should.

Building a Reliable Homelab Backup System with Zerobyte

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