Re: [Duplicity-talk] Fwd: Re: Restoring from/to a USB stick

[Andrew Wood]

Hi Nate/ everyone,

Thanks for your further suggestions and advice.

If I run

>duplicity list-current-files 
file:///run/media/awood/MyPassport/Deja-Vu-Back-up > 
/run/media/awood/MyPassport/USB-Restore/dup-log.txt

which has no --time parameter, and I try and find an entry for the USB 
volume '7160-75C1' then there's no reference other than a couple of 
status file - like this one:

home/awood/.local/share/gvfs-metadata/uuid-7160-75C1-e7c29a79.log

I also tried this is the --time "03-27-2020" instead and there's the 
same result - no other reference to the USB than that above.

The reason that I think that the USB was actually backed-up is that if I 
look in some of the more recent manifest files then I can see delete 
operations on files in the USB volume '7160-75C1'. So, I conclude that 
there was - at some point a full back-up of the volume, and then 
subsequent operations on the files on the volume are being recorded ie 
changelog. I also know that in March/April the USB stick was mounted and 
that the locations to back-up in Deja-Vu were both /home/andrew and also 
the USB volume. So, the question is - how can I retrieve that full 
backup and specifically the USB?

For example, if I try something like this as was suggested:

duplicity --file-to-restore  /run/media/awood/7160-75C1/ 
file:///run/media/awood/MyPassport/Deja-Vu-Back-up 
/run/media/awood/MyPassport/USB-Restore-7160-75C1

This man entry for duplicity (https://linux.die.net/man/1/duplicity) 
suggests --file-to-restore takes a folder name. If I specify the root 
for the folder then that should work, shouldn't it? Hence the '/' on the 
volume name for the USB.

Best wishes,

Andrew


On 12/05/2020 00:11, Nate Eldredge wrote:
> On Mon, 11 May 2020, Andrew Wood via Duplicity-talk wrote:
>
> > Hi Nate/ everyone
> >
> > Thanks for the suggestion below re. using a temporary directory, 
> > however the temporary directory only contains the restored /home 
> > directory and not the contents of the USB. Both locations were 
> > included as places for making back-ups to Deja-Vu, and indeed 
> > duplicity indicates that a full back-up was made of the USB - on 26 
> > March as in my initial email to the list below.
>
> Oh.  The option --time asks for the most recent backup *at or before* 
> the given time, and when you specify only a date it's interpreted as 
> midnight (00:00h).  So if the backup was actually made sometime *on* 
> March 26, then you're getting an earlier backup.  Perhaps you want 
> --time "03-27-2020" instead.
>
> You may want to use "duplicity list-current-files" with --time to see 
> if your desired files are there, as of the specified date, before 
> going through with the restore.
>
> > If I use the --force option as suggested then will it actually make 
> > any difference except restoring my /home directory again? More to the 
> > point, I don't need to restore the /home directory - it was already 
> > restored and indeed into the hard disk.
>
> Yeah, --force won't affect which files are restored - it's just to 
> allow you to restore into a directory which is not empty, potentially 
> overwriting anything that's there.  Using the temporary directory is 
> safer.
>
> > It's the USB which is to be restored. I don't see how I can specify 
> > only restoring the USB and all its contents. Any suggestions? Surely, 
> > I need to specify the USB in the parameters to duplicity?
>
> By default everything in the backup is restored.  If you want to 
> select only a particular file or director, use the --file-to-restore 
> option.