[Box Backup] Mailbox backup is dangerous.

[Alexandre Mallais]

It has been more than a year that we are using box backup at my work, 
and we never failled on restoring a file (over 50 client) (more then 2TB 
or data). So I am do not really understand the concern you all have, 
because for me it alwasy worked good.

And with more than 50 client, I guess I would have encoutered the 
scenario you are saying.

scartomail a écrit :
> --- On Fri, 8/28/09, Chris Wilson <chris at qwirx.com> wrote:
>
>   
>> From: Chris Wilson <chris at qwirx.com>
>> Subject: Re: [Box Backup] Mailbox backup is dangerous.
>> To: boxbackup at boxbackup.org
>> Date: Friday, August 28, 2009, 6:33 PM
>> Hi Edo,
>>
>> On Fri, 28 Aug 2009, scartomail wrote:
>>
>>     
>>> @Chris(or other developpers): Would you please give
>>>       
>> you opinion on this?
>>
>> I'm not sure that it is a "bug". Box Backup was originally
>> designed to work this way. The procedure for removing old
>> and deleted versions is undocumented and I don't claim to
>> understand it. A bug by my definition is when software's
>> behaviour does not match its documentation, or it fails to
>> perform a documented function.
>>     
>
> Very true, and scary.
> We have software running around and we do not know what it does.
>
>   
>> I agree that the behaviour is undesirable. I have been
>> intending for a long time to implement backup snapshots
>> where every file within a snapshot is preserved, and the
>> client, not the server, chooses when to delete an entire
>> snapshot to free up space on the store.
>>     
>
>
> BB does have 2 bakup mode's snapshot and lazy.
> Would it be best to use the snapshot for now or will houskeeping kick in anyway?
>
>   
>> Some members have written patches to change the
>> housekeeping deletion behaviour. However as I don't
>> understand it, I don't feel qualified to review those
>> patches, and I feel that the current housekeeping behaviour
>> is fundamentally undesirable, and patching it will not help.
>> The only thing that would make me (personally) comfortable
>> that my old versions of files were being preserved to my
>> liking is the above immutable snapshot behaviour.
>>
>>     
>
> Ok, this is me thinking out load with no real c++ programming skils.
> BB does 3 things.
> - backup: this seems to work
> - housekeeping : we don't realy know what it does and it sometimes deletes files.
> - restore: this seems to work
>
> Let's say housekeeping is currently doing 10 things.
> Why don't we throw away the housekeeping part and replace it with a new houskeeping that just does 1 or 2 things that we know of it does well and are essential for BB to function.
> We create that by copy and paste the housekeeping stuff we know and understand.
>
> This way we have something we understand, is stabel and we can always add functionality to it as we go allong.
>
> If this is a ridiculous way of looking at the problem, I'm sorry.
> Remember I was just thinking out loud.
>
>
>   
>>> If there are bugs in BB and it isn't stable yet,
>>>       
>> that's ok, it is still under development. But a lot of
>> people report all kinds of bugs and errors with BB.
>>
>> Most of the bugs reported are not data loss bugs, e.g.
>> failure to compile, bbackupd crashes, or new feature
>> requests.
>>
>> I try to investigate data loss bugs as best I can, if I
>> don't understand why they occur or if there's a chance of
>> retrieving the lost data. Unfortunately in Tom's case I have
>> already failed on many attempts to understand the
>> housekeeping deletion logic, and there is no chance of
>> recovery of the lost data.
>>
>> I also haven't had a lot of time to attend to Box over the
>> last two years. When I joined the project, I originally
>> intended just to write Boxi. Since then I have stepped up to
>> maintaining the windows port, and then to maintaining the
>> whole of Box Backup.
>>
>>     
>>> Shouldn't we test and address(report) them(or are they
>>>       
>> already reported)?
>>
>> Yes, definitely, please do report them, test them, and hold
>> us to account to make sure that we publish correct,
>> informative and not misleading information about the
>> capabilities and omissions or risks of Box Backup on our
>> website and other appropriate places.
>>     
>
> Will do.
> I'm currently setting up the test environment as I said before.
> I will try to run several scenario's to see whappens.
>
> Most problmems of data loss seem to be over a long period of time.
> I'll get back to you on doing the same but than setting it up(configuring) for a day or a week tops.
>
> Anyway thanks for the clear anwser, it's much apreciated.
>
> Rgds Edo
>
>
>   
>> Cheers, Chris.
>> -- _____ __     _
>> \  __/ / ,__(_)_  | Chris Wilson <0000 at
>> qwirx.com> - Cambs UK |
>> / (_/ ,\/ _/ /_ \ | Security/C/C++/Java/Ruby/Perl/SQL
>> Developer |
>> \__/_/_/_//_/___/ | We are GNU : free your mind & your
>> software |
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>>     
>
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