Re: [rdiff-backup-users] The rdiff-backup poll!

[Chris Wilson]

Hi Ben and all,

> How do you think rdiff-backup should be improved?

I voted in the poll, thanks. However, a few things have come to mind 
since:

I normally back up to an unprivileged account on the remote server, and 
I'd like a way to suppress these warning messages:

Warning: ownership cannot be changed on filesystem at
        /mnt/backup/.../rdiff-backup-data
Unable to import module xattr.
Extended attributes not supported on filesystem at
        /mnt/backup/.../rdiff-backup-data/rdiff-backup.tmp.0
Unable to import module posix1e from pylibacl package.
ACLs not supported on filesystem at
        /mnt/backup/.../rdiff-backup-data/rdiff-backup.tmp.0

Like others on the list, I would like a way to remove old versions of 
certain (large) files from the increments, and to remove (merge) 
older increments.

I'm also considering developing a GUI tool for running and managing 
rdiff-backup, and I'd be interested to know what others think. I'm already 
developing a similar tool for Box Backup, using C++. Ideally I would like 
this tool, Boxi [http://boxi.sourceforge.net], to support all the 
following backup systems:

* Box Backup
* Rdiff-backup
* Duplicity
* Bacula
* any others that the community are interested in

The main issue with supporting Rdiff-backup is the interface to Python 
(from C++). I was wondering if I could/should embed a Python interpreter 
in my code and use that to call rdiff-backup's functions? I would probably 
also need to implement callbacks to report backup progress and errors in 
an appropriate manner for a GUI.

I'd like to know whether anyone else is interested in such support, 
whether there are any objections or suggestions from rdiff-backup users, 
and whether there is any likelihood that the changes I will need to make 
to the core rdiff-backup code might be merged back into the core 
distribution.

I will also need to learn Python, and would appreciate pointers to good 
resources for this.

Has anyone tested rdiff-backup on Windows platforms, with or without 
Cygwin?

By the way, in case you didn't know, Sourceforget uses rdiff-backup for 
their backup strategy. Well done!

> Deployed an rdiff-backup based backup solution to strengthen our our 
> tape backup coverage; centralized filesystem-based backups archived to 
> tape. Launched 2005-09-21.

[https://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=19242&group_id=1]

Cheers, Chris.
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 / __/ / ,__(_)_  | Chris Wilson <0000 at qwirx.com> - Cambs UK |
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