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

[Martin Fisher]

Hi Eric

Thank you for your careful explanation, which is most helpful. This is
an education, certainly! It is useful that this deletion is not too
serious (as I have the files on an online database elsewhere and can
thus play around a little, so to speak): this is a good opportunity to
understand how rdiff-backup works. So, I located the most recent
increment files for the four files in the accidentally deleted folder.
Here is one of he files:

Harris 2007_48 author to chk.odt.2007-12-18T17:00:03-03:00.snapshot.gz

This restore attempt failed

rdiff-backup
'/media/ext3backup/rdiff-backup/rdiff-backup-data/increments/Documents/Oryx/42(1)/Harris
 2007_48 [frmtd]/Harris 2007_48 author to 
chk.odt.2007-12-18T17:00:03-03:00.snapshot.gz' 
'/home/martin/Documents/Oryx/42(1)/Harris 2007_48 [frmtd]/Harris 2007_48 author 
to chk.odt'

because the folder Haris 2007_48 [frmtd] no longer exists. I therefore
settled for this

rdiff-backup
'/media/ext3backup/rdiff-backup/rdiff-backup-data/increments/Documents/Oryx/42(1)/Harris
 2007_48 [frmtd]/Harris 2007_48 author to 
chk.odt.2007-12-18T17:00:03-03:00.snapshot.gz' 
'/home/martin/Documents/Oryx/42(1)/Harris 2007_48 author to chk'

which neatly restored the file to the parent directory (in this case
'42(1)' of the original folder). I have several questions arising from
this:

1) Is there a way to have the original folder ('Harris 2007_48 [frmtd]')
restored at the same time?

2) Is there a way to have this happen and at the same time restore all
four files in the folder without having to specify each one in a
separate rdiff-backup command?

Of course before I was able to make the successful test restore of he
single file I did have several failures due to incorrectly specified
names/paths etc, which does suggest how useful a browser programme of
some sort for backups/restores would be useful.

This leads me to one final question but it is a little long and I will
therefore send it in a separate posting.

Thanks! Martin

 
On Tue, 2007-12-18 at 16:51 -0500, Eric Jensen wrote:
> 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?
> >
> �
-- 
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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