[rdiff-backup-users] newbie questions

[stefan]

Hello,


(I use version 1.2.5, the one in my standard Debian)

I've got a few questions (I've read the ML archive but without success) :

 - it seems to me that if I try to backup a file which is bigger than the file 
size limit of the filesystem I use, I get a "no space left on device" error. 
Right or is it just a coincidence ? If I'm right, then is it possible to 
instruct rdiff-backup to split this file so that it can back it up ?

 - for some reasons, I have files which names include "bad characters". I 
mean, characters which seems wrong in the encoding used on the source file 
system. Although those files are perfectly usable, it seems that rdiff-backup 
doesn't like them at all : it stops on them, with a pretty strange error 
(which I don't remember : I've fixed the filenames)

 - wish : could rdiff-backup check the space left on the destination drive 
before starting an initial backup ? It's very painful to wait an hour before 
seeing that a back up can't be finished because the space left is 
insufficient. Of course I could do the check myself before starting to back 
up, but well, I'm lazy :-)

Now I'd like to make a suggestion to the manual... The --remove-older-than 
documentation could say something like :

"For example, --remove-older-than 1Y will remove the increments older than 1 
year. Therefore, you'll be able to recover the latest version of the file but 
not any particular incremental changes that occured more than one year ago.
For example, imagine a file was initially backed up 2 years ago, and for which 
there are changes backed up every month since then (so approx 23 increments 
till today). You'll be able to recover all the file versions from today back 
to twelve months ago. Any versions further than that (e.g. 22 months ago) 
will not be recoverable. So basically you keep the recent versions and loose 
the old ones."

I suggest that because although the documentation is rather clear, I had to 
read it carefully several time before understanding it (and by reading my 
suggestion, you'll probably be able to tell me if my understanding is 
correct :-) ). A good example is worth the effort here, me think.

Thanks for answers.

Happy new year.

Stefan

-- 
Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes