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Posted to users@subversion.apache.org by Kenneth McDonald <ke...@sbcglobal.net> on 2004/05/30 06:37:56 UTC
Any thoughts on using Subversion as a general backup tool?
I was curious as to what sort of experimentation might have been done
with
using Subversion as a general backup tool, and if people have
thoughts/comments/
suggestions etc. My guess is that is probably not quite suitable for
such
use, but I'm wondering...
My specific situation is that I have a Macintosh Powerbook with a 60 Gb
hard drive.
I also have a couple of external 120 Gb Firewire drives, which I use
for backup.
I have Retrospect Express, but don't use it as often as I should, since
it has
such a godawful user interface. I manually back up my really critical
stuff
regularly, but don't have a good backup system for my HD as a whole.
I've
considered trying rsync or psync, but when it comes right down to it,
_really_ want something which lets me restore a file or directory to a
state as of
a given previous date.
So if people could give their comments on how one might use Subversion
in this manner (and if it has been done successfully), I'd be most
interested.
Some potential problems I could see are things like ensuring Subversion
has access to _all_ the files on the HD, speed of backup and of checking
files for changes, and of course, what do you do about the fact that
applications and users won't pleasantly use 'svn add', 'svn delete', and
'svn move' when they change things on the HD.
Thanks,
Ken McDonald
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Re: Any thoughts on using Subversion as a general backup tool?
Posted by "Ph. Marek" <ph...@bmlv.gv.at>.
> I was curious as to what sort of experimentation might have been done
> with
> using Subversion as a general backup tool, and if people have
> thoughts/comments/
> suggestions etc. My guess is that is probably not quite suitable for
> such
> use, but I'm wondering...
I'm currently looking to implement svn as a backup tool for my home use.
I've had a look at svk too (svk.elixus.org).
My problems with this tools are:
- svn needs .svn-directories, which take up much space
- svk (and svn) import fetch the whole directory tree and don't know about
exceptions
- both don't know about symlinks, devices, etc.
I know about asvn
(http://www.contactor.se/~dast/svnusers/archive-2003-08/0255.shtml)
but that's a shell-script and therefore too slow for my wants.
So I'm currently writing a perl-script which accesses a svn repository and
does the following things:
- reads the latest head trunk
- compares against the directory tree (mtime, size, ev. md5sum)
- commits changes into the repository.
I'm about to store the directory contents which can't be represented in a svn
repository (like symlinks and devices); apart from checking for multiple
links to the same inode I also plan to automatically detect moves and copies
(with modifications), by storing/verifing the md5sums and manber-hashes (see
http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/manber94finding.html)
A very important point is to support a source/target list with exceptions, so
I can specify "backup ~ as /trunk/home, but not ~/.firefox/default/*/Cache"
and so on.
Hey Kenneth, how about volunteering? :-)
Regards,
Phil
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Re: Any thoughts on using Subversion as a general backup tool?
Posted by Adrian Howard <ad...@quietstars.com>.
On 30 May 2004, at 07:37, Kenneth McDonald wrote:
[snip]
> Some potential problems I could see are things like ensuring Subversion
> has access to _all_ the files on the HD, speed of backup and of
> checking
> files for changes, and of course, what do you do about the fact that
> applications and users won't pleasantly use 'svn add', 'svn delete',
> and
> 'svn move' when they change things on the HD.
[snip]
Another thing that will cause you problems on a Mac OS X box is that
there are still a surprising number of places that still use resource
forks - which obviously won't be picked up by Subversion.
Adrian
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Re: Any thoughts on using Subversion as a general backup tool?
Posted by Francis Irving <fr...@flourish.org>.
On Sun, May 30, 2004 at 01:37:56AM -0500, Kenneth McDonald wrote:
> I was curious as to what sort of experimentation might have been done
> with using Subversion as a general backup tool, and if people have
> thoughts/comments/ suggestions etc. My guess is that is probably not
> quite suitable for such use, but I'm wondering...
...
> I've considered trying rsync or psync, but when it comes right down
> to it, _really_ want something which lets me restore a file or
> directory to a state as of a given previous date.
I recommend unison, which is half-way between rsync and a version
control system. It uses the rsync algorithm, but keeps meta-data to
sync in both directions, and can be told to keep backups when files
change.
http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/
Francis
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RE: Any thoughts on using Subversion as a general backup tool?
Posted by Tim Gebhardt <su...@gebhardtcomputing.com>.
I don't think it's such a bad idea. Check out this article:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/11/11/237250
This guy keeps all of his stuff in CVS. Subversion is a compelling
replacement for CVS, so Subversion should only work better. If you read the
article, all the stuff that the guy complains about is stuff that has been
fixed with subversion (moving files, directories, binaries, etc.).
The coolest benefit it looks like from the article is the ability to have
all your bash/emacs/x11/etc settings migrate with you no matter where you
go. Just run a svn update wherever you are and it's like you're sitting at
home. It also has the added side effect that all of your stuff will be
inadvertently mirrored across several computers (and it should be all up to
date), making backups very simple an unobtrusive (so you'll actually do
them).
Tim Gebhardt
President
DePaul CSS/ACM
subversion@gebhardtcomputing.com
--Without C we would only have BASI, OBOL, and PASAL--
>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>From: Kenneth McDonald [mailto:kenneth.m.mcdonald@sbcglobal.net]
>>>Sent: Sunday, May 30, 2004 1:38 AM
>>>To: users@subversion.tigris.org
>>>Subject: Any thoughts on using Subversion as a general backup tool?
>>>
>>>I was curious as to what sort of experimentation might have been done
>>>with
>>>using Subversion as a general backup tool, and if people have
>>>thoughts/comments/
>>>suggestions etc. My guess is that is probably not quite suitable for
>>>such
>>>use, but I'm wondering...
>>>
>>>My specific situation is that I have a Macintosh Powerbook with a 60 Gb
>>>hard drive.
>>>I also have a couple of external 120 Gb Firewire drives, which I use
>>>for backup.
>>>I have Retrospect Express, but don't use it as often as I should, since
>>>it has
>>>such a godawful user interface. I manually back up my really critical
>>>stuff
>>>regularly, but don't have a good backup system for my HD as a whole.
>>>I've
>>>considered trying rsync or psync, but when it comes right down to it,
>>>_really_ want something which lets me restore a file or directory to a
>>>state as of
>>>a given previous date.
>>>
>>>So if people could give their comments on how one might use Subversion
>>>in this manner (and if it has been done successfully), I'd be most
>>>interested.
>>>Some potential problems I could see are things like ensuring Subversion
>>>has access to _all_ the files on the HD, speed of backup and of checking
>>>files for changes, and of course, what do you do about the fact that
>>>applications and users won't pleasantly use 'svn add', 'svn delete', and
>>>'svn move' when they change things on the HD.
>>>
>>>Thanks,
>>>Ken McDonald
>>>
>>>
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>>>For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@subversion.tigris.org
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Re: Any thoughts on using Subversion as a general backup tool?
Posted by Jason Diamond <ja...@injektilo.org>.
Ryan Wilcox wrote:
>People have done it before, although using CVS instead of subversion. Although I
>can't find the original article, I did find several links that may be helpful:
>
>
http://www.kitenet.net/~joey/cvshome.html
He uses Subversion now.
-- Jason
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Re: Any thoughts on using Subversion as a general backup tool?
Posted by Ryan Wilcox <ry...@mac.com>.
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On 5/30/04, at 1:37 AM, Kenneth McDonald said:
>So if people could give their comments on how one might use Subversion
>in this manner (and if it has been done successfully), I'd be most
>interested.
>Some potential problems I could see are things like ensuring Subversion
>has access to _all_ the files on the HD, speed of backup and of checking
>files for changes, and of course, what do you do about the fact that
>applications and users won't pleasantly use 'svn add', 'svn delete', and
>'svn move' when they change things on the HD.
If you didn't get any response on this issue, here are my thoughts:
#1: Don't back up your entire hard drive - just maybe your user folder. I don't
even go that far - I have a special "desk" repository/folder where I keep my
created documents, important stuff, and whatnot That way I'm not backing up
things like mp3s, photos, etc.
Then, every few months, I backup the things I don't have in subversion - the
music, photos, mail, etc etc.
#2: If you have special configuration files it wouldn't hurt to put those under
subversion control as well. On my main machine (powerbook as well) I haven't
done anything special with the config files, but I do keep config files for like
my servers and such under source control as well.
Of course, the issue is now how to backup the repository. My repositories are
small enough I just use hotbackup.py and use Apple's Backup to send the results
to Apple - although I doubt this will last for much longer, as my data sizes
grow.
People have done it before, although using CVS instead of subversion. Although I
can't find the original article, I did find several links that may be helpful:
<http://radio.weblogs.com/0100544/2003/11/19.html#a879>
Hope this helps,
_Ryan Wilcox
================================================================
Wilcox Development Solutions: http://www.wilcoxd.com
Toolsmiths for the Internet Age PGP: 0x2F4E9C31
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