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

[Michael Hannon]

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