Re: Format of backup matters more (to me) than which software that does it

[EricZolf]

To make it short:
* I don't know of any such standard format for backups
* rdiff-backup can't disappear as it's open source
* rdiff-backup can cover your use cases as I kind of understood them, you just 
need to use the right parameters and put them e.g. in a cron job
* rdiff-backup can't help you being better at making backups...

On November 28, 2019 3:01:23 PM UTC, address@hidden wrote:
>Two introductory things:
>
>   * Happy Thanksgiving to all!
>
>* I am not very good about doing regular backups, or backing up
>everything 
>that should be backed up
>
>I'm writing this to maybe spark a discussion which might include links
>to 
>sources that provide the answers I'm looking for (for which I'm looking
>;-).
>
>To me, I don't care too much or at all what software does my backups, I
>would 
>like to have a convenient almost one button (one cron job) method to do
>my 
>backups, and then I care more about how the backups are organized /
>formatted, 
>with the idea (among others) that a variety of software could write to
>or read 
>from the backups as organized.
>
>I guess the exception to not caring about the software is that I do
>recognize 
>that programs that use rsync are useful at times, especially when the
>backup 
>is remote.  (But using rsync could be an option of any backup program,
>not 
>just, for example, one like rdiff, which, iiuc, is written specifically
>to 
>(always?) use rsync.)
>
>Is there any standard for the organization of backed-up files?  Maybe
>even a 
>default standard (something that several backup programs use)?
>
>I'm going to elaborate -- I mean things like the naming of files, the
>naming of 
>directories of files, compression of files (or tarring), encryption of
>files,  
>whether perhaps they are stored as diffs, etc.
>
>I want to elaborate further, but I don't know how best to do that --
>let me 
>describe (in probably too long a writeup) how I'd like my backup files
>to be 
>stored.
>
>First of all, I want to distinguish between backups of the system and
>backups 
>of user data (and sort of an inbetween one, backups of user / system 
>configuration data).
>
>Next, let me say that I personally don't care too much about having a
>backup 
>to do a bare metal reinstall of my system, I am much more interested in
>what I 
>consider my "user data" -- files that I've created or collected
>(whether they 
>be programs, source code, text files, spreadsheets, photos, sketches,
>videos, 
>audios, ...).  
>
>If I personally have a system "occurrence" that requires a bare metal 
>reinstall, I am more likely to install a more recent system from
>scratch.  For 
>example, my "daily driver" is a Debian Wheezy system -- if it dies, I
>will 
>probably install the latest Debian (Buster) and then restore my user
>data, 
>rather than restoring the Debian Wheezy system.  
>
>(There could be exceptions or reasons not to do it that way -- I hear
>people 
>complaining about systemd stuff, and having problems (either real
>problems of 
>systemd or just new approaches that are required that a user is not yet
>
>familiar with), so if I found a lot of problems I might go back to
>Wheezy (or 
>something inbetween, like Jessie).  
>
>If I did go back to Wheezy, my first thought is that I'd reinstall
>Wheezy from 
>scratch, then consider adding the user / system configuration files
>(the stuff in 
>/etc and /home/<username./.*) -- that would probably be on a selective
>basis 
>as I found things that weren't working as I desired after the "from
>scratch" 
>install.
>
>Anyway, another thought occurred to me as I write this -- maybe what's
>needed 
>(maybe what I would like to have) is a very easy to read and modify
>backup 
>configuration file, that many backup programs could read, write, and
>utilize.
>
>In it, I could specify, by directory | filename | (maybe) partition,
>which files 
>to backup, how often to back them up, where to store them (and organize
>them), 
>whether to encrypt them, tar them, compress them, store them as diffs
>(I forget 
>the right terminology, so let me just say forward or reverse deltas),
>how to 
>name new directories | files that might be created, whether to use the
>rsync 
>type transmission algorithm, and maybe other things that don't come to
>mind 
>atm.
>
>Then, knowing how the backup is stored, I'd have the freedom (and
>knowledge) 
>to restore anything that I needed to restore -- a single file from
>yesterday, 
>last week, or wheneve; all my user files; all my encrypted files, and
>even a 
>bare metal complete reinstall (including or not including my user
>data).
>
>Of course, I'd like the backup program to handle at least some of those
>
>restorations, but I'd also like the freedom to use other OS (CLI?)
>tools to go 
>into the structure of the backedup files and do whatever I wanted /
>needed to 
>do.
>
>So, maybe rather then elaborating any further, I'll just ask if
>anything like 
>a "standard" backingup configuration file exists, or a standard
>organization of 
>backups, or if several such candidates exist, or if neither of the
>above, does 
>anyone else see the advantage of such an approach?
>
>(One advantage that I hope I've alluded to but maybe not explicitly
>stated is 
>that, if one backup program disappears, other backup programs could
>continue 
>to work with the "standard" backingup configuration file and the
>standard (or 
>the user customized) organization of the backed up files.
>
>(I won't go much into organization of the files, but one such "choice"
>to be 
>made is how subsequent backups are organized in directories, for
>example, each 
>new backup in a new directory, with the same basic name, but with a
>suffix to 
>indicate the date (and time?) when that backup was made.  (And, are
>backups 
>older than a certain time frame deleted, or compressed, or moved to
>another 
>storage medium?))