On 02/09/2011 07:32 AM, Dominic Raferd wrote:
My reading is that using --force on a restore will overwrite existing
files with the same name - so you may lose previous data at the restore
destination. In general if you are restoring a directory (or a complete
repository) it is logical to use a clean destination, in which case it
shouldn't be a problem.
Anyone know different?
Dominic
On 09/02/2011 12:40, Filip Gruszczyński wrote:
I have read in manual, that --force can be dangerous, when restoring
files from backup. I am using --force, when calling rdiff-backup in my
filesystem to restore a file. I can't yet remove it, because otherwise
it fails to restore file. Is it really dangerous or maybe I can keep
it?
When you are restoring a directory, "--force" will not only overwrite
existing files (which is probably what you intended, anyway), but it
will also _delete_ any files or even entire subdirectories that were
not present in the backup. It will restore your directory to exactly
the state it was on the backup, nothing more, nothing less. That
might be a nasty surprise.