Cedar Backup does not include any facility to restore backups. Instead, it assumes that the administrator (using the procedures and references in Appendix C, Data Recovery) can handle the task of restoring their own system, using the standard system tools at hand.

If I were to maintain recovery code in Cedar Backup, I would almost certainly end up in one of two situations. Either Cedar Backup would only support simple recovery tasks, and those via an interface a lot like that of the underlying system tools; or Cedar Backup would have to include a hugely complicated interface to support more specialized (and hence useful) recovery tasks like restoring individual files as of a certain point in time. In either case, I would end up trying to maintain critical functionality that would be rarely used, and hence would also be rarely tested by end-users. I am uncomfortable asking anyone to rely on functionality that falls into this category.

My primary goal is to keep the Cedar Backup codebase as simple and focused as possible. I hope you can understand how the choice of providing documentation, but not code, seems to strike the best balance between managing code complexity and providing the functionality that end-users need.