Re: [rdiff-backup-users] [Solved] Where did the restored folder go to?

[Martin Fisher]

Shamefacedly I must now indicate that I have solved this problem
following a 2-day lay off from looking at the screen... The problems
were 2-fold: 

(1) I did not fully understand how to specify where the backup files are
located. Hence I specified

/media/ext3backup/rdiff-backup/home/martin/Documents/...

whereas I should have specified

/media/ext3backup/rdiff-backup/Documents/...

I don't know why, but I assumed that because my crontab is
(abbreviating):

0 * * * * rdiff-backup --include --include /home/martin/Documents
--exclude '**' /home/martin /media/ext3backup/rdiff-backup

that /home/martin was part of the backup path. But of course it is not,
as can be seen clearly in the file browser.

(2) A fuller understand of how to specify the time was required. At the
time I succeeded in restoring the files, the deletion was made 4 days
previously, and therefore using '-r 4D' worked fine.

Incidentally, the backup and restore works fine using parentheses
( and ) in folder names.

With thanks to those who helped! Martin

On Thu, 2007-12-20 at 13:47 -0800, Michael Hannon wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 20, 2007 at 09:22:44AM -0300, Martin Fisher wrote:
> > Following a number of postings yesterday I have attempted to understand
> > what I am doing wrong, or what is the problem, with my attempts to
> > restore. Using this command:
> > 
> > ~$ rdiff-backup --print-statistics -v9 -r now
> > '/media/ext3backup/rdiff-backup/home/martin/Documents/Oryx/42(1)/'
> > '/home/martin/Documents/test'
> > 
> > I am attempting a test restore of a folder ('42(1)') that currently
> > exists, to a test folder, and have requested verbosity 9. The restore
> > does not take place but reading through the output I am unsure why. Is
> > it because 'ACLs not supported by filesystem'? (although I do not know
> > what this means). 
> 
> Hi, Martin.  I'm relatively new to rdiff myself, but I notice a few
> things about this situation.
> 
> (1) An ACL is an "Access Control List", meaning a system of file
> permissions that is more sophisticated than the standard *nix system of
> "rwx" for "user,group,other".  I don't think this is the issue here.
> 
> (2) It looks as if rdiff "thinks" it has succeeded, but, for reasons I
> don't understand, it REMOVES your target directory at the end of the
> process:
> 
> > Thu Dec 20 08:57:54 2007  Starting restore
> > of /media/ext3backup/rdiff-backup/home/martin/Documents/Oryx/42(1)
> > to /home/martin/Documents/test as it was as of Thu Dec 20 08:57:54 2007.
> > Thu Dec 20 08:57:56 2007  Processing changed file .
> > Thu Dec 20 08:57:56 2007  Regular copying ()
> > to /home/martin/Documents/rdiff-backup.tmp.1
> > Thu Dec 20 08:57:56 2007  Removing directory /home/martin/Documents/test
> > Thu Dec 20 08:57:56 2007  Restore finished
> > Thu Dec 20 08:57:56 2007  Cleaning up
> 
> (3) rdiff-backup seems to be dealing gracefully with your '42(1)'
> directory name, but I would avoid directory names with punctuation,
> i.e., parentheses.
> 
> (4) As you appear to be satisfied to get the most-recent version of
> '(42)1', and as it appears that the backup is on the same device as the
> target directory of the restore, you could, if I understand correctly,
> simply OMIT all of the rdiff-backup machinery and just copy the files,
> something like:
> 
>     cp -r \
>     /media/ext3backup/rdiff-backup/home/martin/Documents/Oryx/42(1) \
>     /home/martin/Documents/test
> 
> That admittedly would not shed any light on this mystery, but it might
> get the files you want.
> 
>                                       - Mike
> 
> �
-- 
Dr Martin Fisher
Editor, Oryx - The International Journal of Conservation
Fauna & Flora International, 4th Floor, Jupiter House
Station Road, Cambridge, CB1 2JD, UK

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