[Duplicity-talk] Re: Duplicity best practices?

[Eric B.]

"Ian Barton" <address@hidden> wrote in message 
news:address@hidden
> Benjamin Montgomery wrote:
>> I'm wondering if folks on this list would be willing to share
>> information on their use of Duplicity.  I'm interested in what are the
>> best practices for a routine backup system.
>>
> Hi Ben,
>
> I have a page on my site at http://www.ian-barton.com/Linux/Duplicity 
> which discusses this. I originally wrote this for my own reference. It 
> needs updating, as duplicity now has slightly different command line 
> options.

As a newbie myself, I think it is a very good primer into duplicity.  It 
basically covers everything that I have had to learn in the last 2-3 days, 
so it is a very good intro.  One thing I did see missing however, that could 
be a useful addition, is the use of duplicity verify after a backup.

I'm just trying to figure out how to use that effectively myself.  Right 
now, my script runs the verify but always fails.  I have to do additional 
testing and see where the problems lie, but I would think/expect that good 
buisness practice would require a full verify after any backup to ensure 
that the backup was done properly and is successful.  However, I am not sure 
what to do if a verify fails; does one delete the most recent backup and try 
again?

The other thing I saw "missing" is a discussion relating to the --volsize 
parameter.  I have given this a lot of consideration, and I get the feeling 
that keeping the backup in a single volume is the best method; my reasoning 
being that there would be less chance of finding a corrupt piece.  However, 
I am not entirely sure about this theory and would love to hear 
feedback/comments about it.  For my needs, I am backing up to a local NAS so 
I don't need to worry about slow network transfers, however, I don't know if 
a single volume is good for remote uploads or not.  Any thoughts?

Those are my biggest points that I thought of when reading your page.

Thanks again,

Eric