Hi ! sad that you lost you files.
i had come across this a long time ago and that makes me always keep something in mind on restore: be careful with the options! see http://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/rdiff-backup-users/2006-04/msg00024.html regards roland > -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- > Von: "mortee" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Gesendet: 15.03.08 02:57:05 > An: [email protected] > Betreff: [rdiff-backup-users] critical unvary behaviour > > Hi, > > I just had rdiff-backup erase *all* my backups. That is just plain wrong. > > Let me explain. There's no mention whatsoever in the documentation about > the fact that when one restores over an existing directory using the > --force option, RDB would erase any files/directories that exist in the > target directory but don't exist in the backup to be restored. I think > this goes against the whole principle of a backup program, namely > deleting data without prior notice. I hold this despite the requirement > to use --force. One would quite reasonably assume that data covered by > the backup would be overwritten, and anything in excess would be left > alone (possibly warnings might be issued for such items). > > This is especially misleading given that when the backup was created, > some parts of the file system were explicitely excluded - for example, > the whole backup were restricted to a single file system. Given this, > one would even more reasonably expect that when restoring from this > backup, paths matching this exclude pattern would be left alone by > default, e.g. data on a different FS volume mounted somewhere under the > target directory. > > Finally, RDB should at least take extreme care not to overwrite or > delete the very backup source it is restoring from. Unfortunately, it > doesn't check for this - so it is possible to have it delete the backup > directory from under itself, and then die with a file not found exception. > > My actual situation: I had my server's system HDD die on me, so I was > happy to have kept daily backups of it on a separate local disk. I had > another HDD at hand which used to be the system drive of the very same > server up until a few months ago (replaced because it started showing > signs of becoming unreliable). To have my server up temporarily until I > can acquire a real replacement disk, I just put that HDD in, and booted > from it in single user mode. I mounted the backup disk, and (yes, this > is arguably my fault) I haven't paid extra attention to mount it > read-only - I never thought in my worst dreams that a restore operation > on the root partition would ever erase all the valuable data on the > backup disk. So I just launched it targeting the root directory using > --force, and it happily erased anything beyond the mount point, because > that was (of course) excluded from the system backup. Now I'm stuck with > a dead system disk and an empty backup of it - 5 years worth of emails, > system configuration and other stuff are gone in a few minutes. Now I'm > not especially happy. > > What I suggest is that this behaviour should at least be stressed in the > software's manual, so that it be obvious to anyone who cares to take a > look at it. Even better would be to make it an explicit option to have > RDB delete anything at restore time which isn't getting actually > overwritten from the backup - or at least provide an option to disable > this (which, if documented, would underline the default behaviour). > > thanks for the attention > mortee > > > > _______________________________________________ > rdiff-backup-users mailing list at [email protected] > http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/rdiff-backup-users > Wiki URL: http://rdiff-backup.solutionsfirst.com.au/index.php/RdiffBackupWiki > _____________________________________________________________________ Der WEB.DE SmartSurfer hilft bis zu 70% Ihrer Onlinekosten zu sparen! http://smartsurfer.web.de/?mc=100071&distributionid=000000000066 _______________________________________________ rdiff-backup-users mailing list at [email protected] http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/rdiff-backup-users Wiki URL: http://rdiff-backup.solutionsfirst.com.au/index.php/RdiffBackupWiki
