Hi Dave,
Interesting point. Maybe I should try performing a backup on some test files first of all in order to see whether or not the cache directory gets created. Thanks for your advice. Regards, John ## On 12-02-2014 20:15, David Williams wrote: > I don't recall for sure, but it's entirely likely that the cache > directory/files is not created until the first time you perform a > backup. It is a cache, after all, and there probably isn't anything > useful to put in there until tarsnap has done something. > > Dave > > On Wed, Feb 12, 2014 at 3:02 PM, jg5 <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Hi Daniel, Thank you for your reply and your advice. Seems I've managed to >> get further than I thought..:) I already have the keyfile and have stored it >> under /root/ as specified by the configuration file. I'll run 'tarsnap >> --fsck' to create the cache directory and see how it goes from there. Thanks >> again - much appreciated. Regards, John ## On 12-02-2014 19:17, Daniel Staal >> wrote: --As of February 12, 2014 6:54:01 PM +0000, jg5 is alleged to have >> said: 1). On the Tarsnap general usage page, can anyone please tell me what >> the following means: "The examples here assume that you are using a Tarsnap >> configuration file including keyfile and cachedir directives." What are >> 'keyfile and cachedir directives'? Are they simply instructions to the >> operating system to put the keyfile and cache directory in specific >> locations? Close - they are instructions to *tarsnap* on where the files >> are. They look something like this (from my tarsnap.conf file, on FreeBSD): >> ~~~ # Tarsnap cache dire ctory cachedir /usr/local/tarsnap-cache # Tarsnap key file keyfile /root/tarsnap.key ~~~ If you haven't run tarsnap yet, they may not exist. This is generally ok. (At this point.) 2). I don't appear to have the /usr/local/tarsnap-cache directory. Can anyone suggest what might have happened and what I should do about it? Does this mean that Tarsnap hasn't installed properly? Should I re-install? Or should I just run 'tarsnap --fsck'? It probably means the installer didn't create it, for whatever reason. (After all, you might want it someplace else, or a package manager could have created it someplace else for you.) You could create it manually, or run `tarsnap --fsck`. 3). Can anyone point me to a step-by-step guide - online article, whatever - on how to use Tarsnap? I think it's a great idea, and I need to sort out a backup system, but am wondering if it's maybe a bit over my head. Thought I would ask on this forum to see if things become clearer before calling it a day. If you hav e gotten this far, and have a keyfile, you are almost done. It's simpler than it sounds. (If you *don't* have a keyfile, run `tarsnap-keygen --keyfile $KEY_LOCATION --user $USERNAME --machine $MACHINENAME`, where $KEY_LOCATION is the location you want the keyfile to be (whatever you've got in your tarsnap.conf, $USERNAME is whatever you signed on to the tarsnap site with, and $MACHINENAME is whatever you want to call this machine.) Then make sure you have the tarsnap-cache directory (see above), and you are set up. The only thing left is to actually create the backups. That's done using something like this: tarsnap -cf $BACKUPNAME /your/backed/up/directory Where $BACKUPNAME is whatever you want to call that backup - I usually use something like 'settings-`date +%F`', which will automatically add the current date to the name. (Check your man pages - `date` is standard, but it's options aren't...) The man pages describe other options. (I like `--humanize-numbers` personally.) To get tha t backup back, you need the command: tarsnap -xf $BACKUPNAME Where $BACKUPNAME is the name of the backup you want to retrieve - as specified in the create command. (`-c` is create, `-x` is extract. `-f` is the name of the 'backup file', even though there is no actual 'file'; it's using the same syntax as tar.) Again, check the man pages for other options and details on exactly what that will do. Hope that helps, and was a bit clearer. ;) Daniel T. Staal --------------------------------------------------------------- This email copyright the author. Unless otherwise noted, you are expressly allowed to retransmit, quote, or otherwise use the contents for non-commercial purposes. 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