Re: [Duplicity-talk] Merge daily backups?

[edgar . soldin]

On 18.07.2016 13:01, address@hidden wrote:
> edgar.soldin--- via Duplicity-talk <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
>> On 18.07.2016 08:17, Greg Bell via Duplicity-talk wrote:
>>> Hi Duplicity,
>>>
>>> My use-case is similar to this thread: 
>>> http://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/duplicity-talk/2016-06/msg00020.html
>>>
>>> But my backups are over the internet to a remote host.  So my full backup 
>>> will take weeks.
>>>
>>> And I want to do daily incrementals.
>>>
>>> According to the above thread, that'd be a bad idea.  Ghozlane recommended 
>>> the remove-older-than and remove-all-inc-of-but-n-full options.
>>>
>>> Does the remove-all-inc-of-but-n-full merge the incrementals into one?
>>>
>>> Ideally I'd like to have my daily backups result in just a few incremental 
>>> sets (varying between 1 and n depending on how often I merge).  The idea of 
>>> thousands of incremental sets, reliant on each other for the backup's 
>>> integrity, is scary.
>>>
>>> Am I off in the weeds here?
>>>
>>
>> nope, long chains are risky! unfortunately does duplicity not sport a merge 
>> feature, which would be kind of traffic intensive anyways, as all volumes 
>> have to be downloaded, processed and uploaded to the backend again.
>>
>> what duplicity users usually do is to keep an eye on chain length and decide 
>> a new chain interval that fit's their purpose and force full backups then. 
>> as this sometimes takes long to process/upload the usual workaround is to 
>> backup to a local file:// target and sync this folder to a backend of choice 
>> w/ an appropriate client.
>>
>> if you are feeling adventurous, you may copy the full backup (the file names 
>> are quite intuitive) to a new folder and run your new incremental against 
>> that. that's a hack, known to work.
>>
>> remember - backup is about data safety. run a verify from time to time.
> 
> I have a couple of questions about this.  My last full backup took 55
> hours, if I run a verify won't it try to restore every file and compare
> with the local copy -- at least that is what the manual says?  

there's no other way. duplicity happens on the local machine only.

>Also, if
> I try your trick of moving the full backup to another folder, how do I
> tell duplicity to use that folder and how do I then delete the old
> incremental backups?

by giving the remote folders as different backup targets eg.  
file:///backup201605 file:///backup201606 file:///backup201607 ...

deleting the old incrementals might not be a good idea as you usually wanna 
keep several chains in case one gets corrupted.

..ede/duply.net