Re: [rdiff-backup-users] Remove (large) files from backup without generating negative diff

[Dominic Raferd]

On 11 June 2017 at 11:13, Marcin Zajączkowski <address@hidden> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I have a long established backup with some large files which I would
> like to move to another directory withing the same backup (or just
> remove entirely from the backup) as a clean up of the original disk
> space/organization. I would like to avoid extra many GBs in the next
> incremental backup session when those files are moved/removed. I don't
> need their history - they will be backed up in another way/place.
>
> Firstly, I was plying with removing just related information from
> "increments" directory. Unfortunately it made restore/verification
> lopped with 100% CPU utilization. I needed to remove all information
> about affected files also from extended_attributes.*, file_statistics.*,
> etc. I feel it like asking for trouble.
>
> Two questions:
> 1. Do you know any better way of removing files from a (rdiff-)backup
> without generating a "negative" diff in the next backup?
> 2. Do you see any additional risk with manual manipulation of
> rdiff-backup files if --verify and --restore (checked selectively) seem
> to work fine?
>


​Regarding your second question, I don't know, but I would advise against.
Regarding your first, if you haven't had these large files in your backup
for very long it might be worth regressing your archive to a time before it
held these files using my script at
https://www.timedicer.co.uk/programs/help/rdiff-backup-regress.sh.php - it
must be run on the machine that holds the repository.​ Otherwise it might
be best to accept the bloat in your repository.