Backing up & pruning multiple folders in one snapshot

Getting Help
1

I’ve done a quick search and can’t find this answered so apologies if it’s already been asked.

I want to backup multiple folders to a single repository, however I want to be able to add folders to the repository organically over time.

I’ve been backing up with multiple folders under one snapshot:

90597fe0  2021-07-03 08:00:01  my-server              /boot/config/plugins/dockerMan/templates-user
                                                        /boot/config/plugins/user.scripts
                                                        /mnt/user/appdata

In February I was only backing up /mnt/user/appdata to the repository. Then I added the two directories in /boot.

I wanted to restore a file from the backup today and I noticed that there were lingering snapshots that only contain /mnt/user/appdata from way back in February that don’t seem to have been pruned:

keep 12 snapshots:
ID        Time                 Host         Tags        Reasons           Paths
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7be12eca  2021-02-07 04:46:17  my-server              daily snapshot    /mnt/user/appdata
                                                        weekly snapshot
58044117  2021-02-08 05:00:08  my-server              daily snapshot    /mnt/user/appdata
056d6a47  2021-02-10 09:00:02  my-server              daily snapshot    /mnt/user/appdata
687c9a79  2021-02-11 09:00:02  my-server              daily snapshot    /mnt/user/appdata
8fc56b0c  2021-02-12 09:00:01  my-server              daily snapshot    /mnt/user/appdata
0b66cee0  2021-02-13 09:03:10  my-server              daily snapshot    /mnt/user/appdata
97adcf34  2021-02-14 09:00:01  my-server              daily snapshot    /mnt/user/appdata
                                                        weekly snapshot
0f7afe95  2021-02-15 09:00:02  my-server              daily snapshot    /mnt/user/appdata
abd805ec  2021-02-16 09:00:02  my-server              daily snapshot    /mnt/user/appdata
0e11db5e  2021-02-17 09:00:02  my-server              daily snapshot    /mnt/user/appdata
c5a1648e  2021-02-18 09:00:01  my-server              daily snapshot    /mnt/user/appdata
dc41c641  2021-02-19 09:00:01  my-server              daily snapshot    /mnt/user/appdata
                                                        weekly snapshot
                                                        monthly snapshot
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In addition to:

Applying Policy: keep 30 daily, 8 weekly, 6 monthly snapshots
keep 37 snapshots:
ID        Time                 Host         Tags        Reasons           Paths
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
e746f91b  2021-02-28 09:00:01  my-server              monthly snapshot  /boot/config/plugins/dockerMan/templates-user
                                                                          /boot/config/plugins/user.scripts
                                                                          /mnt/user/appdata

895f9f3f  2021-03-31 08:00:01  my-server              monthly snapshot  /boot/config/plugins/dockerMan/templates-user
                                                                          /boot/config/plugins/user.scripts
                                                                          /mnt/user/appdata

c2bd38c5  2021-04-30 08:00:02  my-server              monthly snapshot  /boot/config/plugins/dockerMan/templates-user
                                                                          /boot/config/plugins/user.scripts
                                                                          /mnt/user/appdata

Am I misunderstanding how forget works? The default group-by is host,paths and I’ve read on this forum that it doesn’t matter if you specify backups individually or all together, but in this case where I want to add folders to the repository over time does it matter?

2

forget first groups the snapshots and then applies the forget policy to each of these groups.

3

You need to combine two things here:

  1. Forget-policy: Keeping 30 Daily snapshots means you keep 30 snapshots starting from the last snapshot in the group and counting backwards.
  2. Grouping: Grouping is done by host, paths per default. When you add a path to your backup, you create a new group.

As you aren’t adding any new snapshots to your original group (my-server, /mnt/user/appdata), you will keep the first snapshots forever.

Solution: Only group by host using the -g option to forget.

2 Likes
4

I get it now, thanks that actually makes sense. Cheers!