rdiff-backup-delete: Feature requests

Dieter Heußner via Any discussion of rdiff-backup <[email protected]> Wed, 25 Jan 2023 18:56:35 +0100

Newsgroups	gmane.comp.sysutils.backup.rdiff-backup.general
Message-ID	<3020399.CbtlEUcBR6@hp15>

Hi,

Let ".abc" be an arbitrary filename extension. A lot of files with this filename extension
were backed up with rdiff-backup without having been excluded in a proper exclude-file-
list (It goes without saying that exclusion of unwanted files is the better option).

Now I have the task to get rid of all these files by deploying rdiff-backup-delete.
Fortunately there is such a utility, rdiff-backup-delete.

Its man page gives a very simple example of how to use this utility program.
In a playground I checked if rdiff-backup-delete allows for deleting ALL these files ("*.abc")
in a SINGLE run like:
rdiff-backup-delete --dry-run "/path/to/main/directory/*/*.abc"

The expression "/path/to/main/directory" the "mount point (in a test environment, this is
just a directory on another disk), which was also used in the rdiff-backup runs.

Launching rdiff-backup-delete (as described above) seemed to be ok. I got a lot of
messages in the command line telling me
removing entries `*/*.~*` from /path/to/main/directory/rdiff-backup-data/...*.gz

It opens a lot of *.gz files for cleansing them (dropping any history information about
"*.abc" files). Unfortunately it does NOT tell how many files (total number) were dropped,
or in the "--dry-run" case how many files would have been dropped.

If rdiff-backup-delete was called without the "--dry-run" option, I reckon that the utility
would do the requested job, but I would not be sure if it really did so. If I ran the utility
with the SAME arguments again, it would do it again but I still would not be sure again if it
REALLY dropped the history of the unwanted files.

Therefore I submit the following new feature requests:
1. The total number of dropped history information should be made available to
the user.
2. Extend the official documentation of rdiff-backup-delete by deploying parts
of the text above. Especially the documentation should mention that
rdiff-backup-delete allows for deleting files in a single run. Of course,
you may modify my text, or adding additional words / examples to it.
3. There should be a (not so short) description about the various types of
"*.gz" files in the subdirectory "rdiff-backup-data" which is solely
maintained by rdiff-backup / rdiff-backup-delete.

Furthermore I would like to understand the implications of running rdiff-backup-delete on
the "timely window size" of rdiff-backup:
By specifying the "window size" in rdiff-backup by the option
"--force --remove-older-than"
does rdiff-backup remove outdated "*.gz" files?

The question could be relevant because rdiff-backup-delete opens "*.gz" files, drops
history information and creates new "*,gz" files which will have a more recent time-stamp.
Will there be a conflict with respect to the window-size?
Could you also add your answer to the official rdiff-backup documentation.

Thank you very much!

Best regards
Dieter

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