RE: [rdiff-backup-users] Remove some backups before a date but not all ?

[Spicer, Kevin]

> How can I do that with rdiff ? Can I say "remove all backup 
> of the last 
> month but keep the baqckup of the first day of this month" ?

You can't - rdiff-backup stores a copy of each file in its current state and a 
series of incremental diffs, which allow a file to be restored to its state at 
some point in the past.  For example to restore a file to its state at the time 
of a one day old backup (assuming daily backups) you would apply the most 
recent diff to the current file copy in the mirror, which would roll it back 
one day.  To roll the file back seven days you would need to apply all the 
increments for the last seven days (effectively rolling it back a day at a 
time).  At present there is no way to combine diffs so you need to keep all 
diffs back to the oldest date you may wish to restore.  Unless you the contents 
of your filesystems change frequently and dramatically I think you'll be 
pleasently suprised by how little space these take up


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