[Box Backup] Handling of changed backup configuration

[boxbackup at fluffy.co.uk]

[

I initially botched my configuration because I didn't really understand
how to exclude directories.

I have my Oracle files under my /home directory in /home/oracle. I had
initially thought you had to create a new file path to make it exclude
things, so I created an Oracle file path and then excluded /home/oracle,
but did not include anything.

The backup software correctly started to backup /home/oracle.

I fixed the config problem halfway, and restarted the backup daemon (I'm
new and didn't know how to make it refresh).

I asked Ben if the unwanted Oracle stuff would go away on it's own, or
what would happen, since I didn't want it wasting space on his server.

]

Okay, the oracle deletion worked flawlessly, it did exactly what you
said.... Good Job! The stuff is deleted, but still there, so I assume it
will go away on it's own over time.

However the Oracle top level item that I created incorrectly is still
there. Should it go away on it's own as well, it's completely gone from
my configuration file now?

Do you think people need a way to purposely delete backups? Say they
backed up something they really, really, don't want a copy of? You seem to
have thought about this carefully what's your opinion? (Something like the
Sarbanes-Oxely stuff in the USA).

I can see that something like that could really cause problems, but may
also be useful if people are managing their own backups (for instance
email retention laws where you probably want it to disappear on the crack
of midnight the first day you can delete it). I also get the impression
you need to be able to hold certain items back from deletion sort of
indefinitely say if the court has ordered you to keep it for some reason.

Do you think a config item for max retention time might be useful? Along
with a config item to prevent something from getting deleted under any
circumstances?

Is there some way to list how much space you are allowed to have on the
drive, along with how much you are using from the backup query client?

Rick


On Sun, 18 Apr 2004, Ben Summers wrote:

>
> Excluded items will be scheduled for deletion from the server. It won't
> happen immediately, though, but they won't be restored unless you
> specifically ask for it. Maybe you'd like to test this -- exclude those
> files, wait for a sync to finish, then use bbackupquery to check that
> the file has been marked as deleted.
>
> In general, I have tried to code the system to work as you'd expect.
>
> Ben