[Rdiff-backup-bugs] [bug #27296] RFE: hardlink sharing between multiple archive backups

[Joshua Jensen]

URL:
  <http://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?27296>

                 Summary: RFE:  hardlink sharing between multiple archive
backups
                 Project: rdiff-backup
            Submitted by: joshmule
            Submitted on: Fri 21 Aug 2009 04:05:32 PM GMT
                Category: None
                Severity: 3 - Normal
              Item Group: None
                  Status: None
                 Privacy: Public
             Assigned to: None
             Open/Closed: Open
         Discussion Lock: Any

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Details:

I ask because I have 2000 (yes, two thousand) machines to back up.  At least
90% of data on each machine is the same... basic Linux filesystems, mostly /
and /var and /usr partitions.

I wonder if it would be worthwhile to add a feature to rdiff-backup that
would look to hardlink files that different rdiff-backup archives have in
common?

Right now, the hard link savings is only per machine's, say, /usr
partition.  Sure, the incremental backup from the same machine
benefits from this; only any differences are recorded.

But right next to that archive directory on the backup server I have a
thousand other archvies with a /usr archive that is mostly identical.  Why not
have the option to make rdiff-backup
be able to use some sort of higher level "all these archives can share
hardlinks" capability?  The space saving would be staggering for multihost
backups.

I was thinking that rdiff-backup could just keep an additional
hardlink-only list of files/checksums that any individual run could
reference, thus giving it a perspective outside of that individual backup. 
When it found a file that was already on that global/group list, it need not
transfer it, only hardlink to it.  This could make storing similar files MUCH
more space and network efficient.

Thoughts?




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