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

[Eric Jensen]

Martin,

I think the problem is in the time specification.  Specifying 'now'  
says to restore the directory to the state it was in 'now' - and  
right now, it doesn't have the folder in it, and so it has been  
'restored to' (i.e. left in) that state.  More specifically, I  
believe that in practice 'now' really means 'as of the most recent  
backup' (since that's the best it can do); it must be the case that  
your hourly backup job ran at least once between the time you deleted  
the folder and the time you tried to do the restore, so the deletion  
of the folder was mirrored to the backup directory (but the folder  
still exists in the incrementals subdirectories of the backup  
directory, which is the beauty of rdiff-backup).  If you have an  
hourly cron job running, that may have happened even between the time  
you checked that it was there and the time that you actually figured  
out the syntax to run the restore command!

What you probably want instead is to specify a time in the past when  
you know the folder existed, so something like

rdiff-backup -r 3D

if you know it was there three days ago (and hasn't been modified  
since), or '-r 4h' for four hours ago.  You probably want to specify  
the smallest amount of time back to before you deleted it, so that  
any changes will be reflected in the restored directory.

'rdiff-backup -l  backup-dir'  will list the different backup sets  
you have, to help you choose the time frame here.

Good luck restoring - on the plus side, you now have a real test of  
your backup system!

Best,

Eric

On Dec 18, 2007, at 4:21 PM, Martin Fisher wrote:

> Dear All
>
> I have just used my rdiff-backup for the first time, to restore the
> contents of a folder (in Ubuntu 7.10) that I accidentally deleted,  
> i.e.
> not in trash). The folder is named 'Harris 2007-48[frmtd]'. I checked
> that the folder was in the backup, and read the documentation and  
> used:
>
> rdiff-backup -r now
> '/media/ext3backup/rdiff-backup/Documents/Oryx/42(1)/Harris
> 2007_48[frmtd]' '/home/martin/Documents/Oryx/42(1)/Harris 2007_48
> [frmtd]'
>
> It ran without any comment, and now the folder no longer exists in
> either the backup or in the restore directory. Could anybody kindly  
> tell
> me (1) what I have done wrong, and (2) whether there is yet anyway of
> finding the file?