Hi Craig, Every time people ask about referencing file contents or their attribs, I can't help but think how the backuppc-fuse is such an underutilized asset.
That utility makes it so easy and natural to browse backups using built-in file system commands -- whether via CLI or GUI. As a wish-list, I think it would be great if the functionality could be better *integrated* and *promoted* within the BackupPC distribution. I find it to be by far the easiest way to browse backups and restore individual files or directories than by manually trying to do it with either other manual CLI or GUI approaches. There are also a few additional polishing features that would make it even more useful: 1. Support for ACLs (currently, if I recall only SELinux attributes are supported properly) - this should not be hard as it just requires "decoding" how rsync internally stores ACLs 2. Add support for hard links (not sure how hard this is) and perhaps other special file types (if possible) 3. Add "write" support to allow for deleting (or maybe even adding) files to backups (including appropriately handing inheritance via incrementals) This would be hugely advantageous in allowing people to elegantly delete unwanted files & directories from backups -- whether due to size, relevance, or privacy concerns. Similarly, it would be great to add back missed files... all without having to repeat the backup or do some manual, ugly "kluge". It may never be a perfectly transparent copy of the original file system (especially if the OS differs) but it can be pretty darn close and mindlessly easy for the user! Craig Barratt via BackupPC-users wrote at about 09:25:46 -0700 on Monday, October 26, 2020: > This is normal. In 4.x just an attrib file captures all the information > about which files are in that directory, with all their metadata (size, > modes, links, xattrs etc). As you note, the file is actually empty and all > that matters is the md5 digest in its name. That refers to the actual > attribute file in the pool. This setup avoids using any hardlinks to > represent duplicate files. > > You can print the contents of the attrib file with BackupPC_attribPrint. > That should show all the files and their metadata in that > directory (assuming the backup is filled; if not the attrib file just > includes files that are different from the next backup). > > Craig > > On Mon, Oct 26, 2020 at 9:17 AM David Hoskinson < > david.hoskin...@astroshapes.com> wrote: > > > I am building a new backuppc server to replace a aging one that someone > > else setup. The old one is 3.31 and i am using the latest 4.4.0. I have > > it making backups but they seem extremely small since many of the backups > > are around a terabyte in size. I noticed this as i was comparing a smaller > > one that was backing up /var/lib/mysql/asterisk When i look at the old > > system and navigate there i get down to the .MYD and MYI files that a mysql > > should have. However on the new system all i have is a single > > attrib_09984fb4670aaae1110ed45e91ab945a file of 0 bytes. The old one has > > 788 files in that directory. However if i browse the backup on my new > > system, it seems the files show in the tree. Is there something wrong here > > or has something changed and this is normal. > > > > Thanks > > > > David Hoskinson > > Systems Administrator > > Ext 226 > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > BackupPC-users mailing list > > BackupPC-users@lists.sourceforge.net > > List: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-users > > Wiki: https://github.com/backuppc/backuppc/wiki > > Project: https://backuppc.github.io/backuppc/ > > > _______________________________________________ > BackupPC-users mailing list > BackupPC-users@lists.sourceforge.net > List: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-users > Wiki: https://github.com/backuppc/backuppc/wiki > Project: https://backuppc.github.io/backuppc/ _______________________________________________ BackupPC-users mailing list BackupPC-users@lists.sourceforge.net List: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-users Wiki: https://github.com/backuppc/backuppc/wiki Project: https://backuppc.github.io/backuppc/
