[ale] Backup software incompatible versions

[Derek Atkins]

You can install both 2.0 and 1.2.8 on your main system and just call the 
right one for the target system.  It's a pain, something I've been 
complaining about to the riff-backup team for months, but it mostly falls 
on deaf ears.

-derek
Sent using my mobile device. Please excuse any typos.
On May 17, 2020 8:33:13 AM DJ-Pfulio via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:

> I've been stuck on an issue for a few weeks.
>
> For the 15 systems here, I've been using rdiff-backup v1.2.x for years,
> happily. Alas, it is python2-based and newer versions are incompatible.
>
> The current Ubuntu 20.04 includes a much newer rdiff-backup v2.0.0
> which uses python3. The way that python2 and python3 pack data for
> transit is different, incompatible, according to the rdiff-backup
> guys.  The underlying storage format for the backup sets haven't
> changed, so it is just the C/S parts.
>
> Most of my systems are running 16.04, so they will likely move to
> 20.04, if that becomes possible, before next April. Some could end up on
> 18.04, which has a different version of rdiff-backup (python2). In
> their infinite developer wisdom, someone decided that a check for
> matching x.y.z rdiff-backup versions was necessary. The 'z' part
> bothers me. The 'x' check makes perfect sense.
>
> I see a number of solutions. Really addicted to the most recent
> backup set effectively being an rsync mirror.  I've used
> rsync+hardlinking for versions previously, but got burned due to
> changes in owners and permissions not being versioned too. I'll not be
> returning to the
> D D D D D D F
> schedule like we used in the 1970s that some backup tools still require.
>
> Really would rather not have to install a separate toolchain on each
> system just to support backups between 3+ OS releases, but that is the
> direction I'm heading.
>
> If I wanted these sorts of complexities, I'd be running gentoo. Did
> that for a few months. Never again.
>
> For a few systems, using rsync to mirror the backup data to a location
> on the backup server, then using rdiff-backup to get efficient
> versioning wouldn't be too bad. In general, I only backup what is
> needed to recreate the system, not ALL the bits.  My desktop backup is
> just 7GB of source files. 90 days of daily versions is just 8.16GB.
>
> Would love some other ideas.
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