Paul Slootman via rsync <rsync@lists.samba.org> wrote: > On Thu 10 Dec 2020, Chris Green via rsync wrote: > > > > Occasionally, because I've moved things around or because I've done > > something else that breaks things, the hard links aren't created as > > they should be and I get a very space consuming backup increment. > > > > Is there any easy way that one can restore hard links in the *middle* > > of a series? For example say I have:- > > > > day1/pictures > > day2/pictures > > day3/pictures > > day4/pictures > > day5/pictures > > > > and I notice that day4/pictures is using as much space as > > day1/pictures but all the others are relatively small, i.e. > > day2 day3 and day5 have correctly hard linked to the previous day but > > day4 hasn't. > > > > It needs a tool that can scan day4, check a file is identical with the > > one in day3 then hardlink it without losing the link from day5. > > If you have these files that are hardlinked: > > day1/pictures/1.jpg > day2/pictures/1.jpg > day3/pictures/1.jpg > > And these are hardlinked, but to a different inode: > > day4/pictures/1.jpg > day5/pictures/1.jpg > > then there is no way of linking the second group to the first in one > step; you will have to individually link day3/pictures/1.jpg to > day4/pictures/1.jpg and then day3/pictures/1.jpg (or > day4/pictures/1.jpg) to day5/pictures/1.jpg. > > It's not like a group of directory entries that are hardlinked to one > inode are some sort of actual group; they just happen to be directory > entries that point to the same inode number. There is no other relation > between those directory entries. > > So you will have to incrementally process each next day against the > previous day. > Yes, that's what I have done, wrote a trivial[ish] script that copied all the backups to a new destination sequentially (using --link-dest) and then removed the original tree, having checked the new backups were OK of course.
Fortunately I have lots of spare space on the backup system at the moment having just upgraded it with a new 8Tb drive, so duplicating the whole backup wasn't an issue (though rather slow because it was from and to the same drive). > > If I make a significant change in such a directory structure (e.g. > renaming a directory) I try to remember to do the same thing on the > backup which some say is wrong, but it saves a lot of space, like you > discovered :) > Yes, I've sometimes done that. -- Chris Green ยท -- Please use reply-all for most replies to avoid omitting the mailing list. To unsubscribe or change options: https://lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/rsync Before posting, read: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html