Re: [Duplicity-talk] suggested feature to help Amazon Glacier users

[Will McCown]

On 4/17/2013 6:44 AM, address@hidden wrote:
> Here's a feature I'd like to request to help out Amazon Glacier users,
> that I thought I'd first post here and see if anyone has comments before
> I put it on launchpad. This is related to my earlier thread, since this
> feature would provide an easy workaround to that bug.
> 
> When using Amazon S3 with a lifecycle transition rule to Glacier, there
> is really no good reason for transitioning the manifests and sigtars --
> they are a negligible fraction of the storage. But the way S3's rules
> work, and the way duplicity names the files, there is no way to do that.
> The rules work by a string prefix match, not a regexp match. And
> duplicity's different file types cannot be distinguished this way.
> 
> One way of making this possible would be to insert the file type in the
> filename before the timestamps. For example, one could (somewhat
> redundantly) insert "manifest" or "sigtar" or "difftar" right after the
> "duplicity".

I find that the current naming convention is a bit inconsistent anyway,
the files are named:

duplicity-full-signatures.<date>.sigtar.gpg
duplicity-full.<date>.manifest.gpg
duplicity-full.<date>vol<n>.difftar.gpg

for a full backup and

duplicity-new-signitures.<date>to<date>.sigtar.gpg
duplictiy-inc.<date>-<date>.manifest.gpg
duplicity-inc.<date>-<date>.vol<n>.difftar.gpg

for and incremental.  I would suggest changing it to:

duplicity-full-signatures.<date>.sigtar.gpg
duplicity-full-manifest.<date>.gpg
duplicity-full.<date>vol<n>.difftar.gpg

and

duplicity-inc-signatures.<date>to<date>.sigtar.gpg
duplictiy-inc-manifest.<date>to<date>.manifest.gpg
duplicity-inc.<date>to<date>.vol<n>.difftar.gpg

So two changes, one move "manifest" ahead of the date in the
filename to be consistent with the "signatures" files and
change "new" to "inc" in the name of the incremental signatures
files.

Of course I don't know how you implement this without breaking
existing backup systems.  Probably need to write a script to
mass rename the archives when upgrading the software.  (Does
Amazon allow renaming of items migrated to glacier?  I haven't
tried.)

-- 
Will McCown, Rolling Hills Estates, CA
address@hidden