[rdiff-backup-users] Using an pre-existing backup as a starting point?

[Eiríkur Þór Ágústsson]

Hi,

I have a directory "mreiki_old", on my backup location. This is an old copy of my current "mreiki" directory
 (it's just a direct copy, not an rdiff-backup backup --- I haven't used rdiff backup before)

I want to create an rdiff-backup of "mreiki" into the backup location, with "mreiki_old" being the first revision, and "mreiki" the second one.

One way to do this is to do:


rdiff-backup mreiki_old  mreiki_backup
rdiff-backup mreiki mreiki_backup

but this create a third copy, wasting space (temporarily).

So my question is, is it okay/possible to turn the "mreiki_old" directly into an rdiff-backup backup, like this for example:

mv mreiki_old mreiki_backup [just to reflect the other example]
rdiff-backup --force mreiki_backup mreiki_backup    
rdiff-backup mreiki mreiki_backup  

that is, is it okay to rdiff-backup a directory into itself like that? ( I tried around with some test cases and it seemed to work)

Is it safe? (In case the program crashes while it's running)
Is there another more sophisticated way to do this?

best regards,
Eirikur Thor