Copy snapshots to another repository

[enboig]

I know there will not be an upgrade repository command; but is there a way to copy all data from an old repository to a new one?

[m3nu]

No, sorry. Needs to be recreated. This would add a lot of code to add a migration function. But you can still keep using old repos. That code is still there. A new repo will just let you benefit from slightly lower cpu usage from Blake3. So changing isn't urgent.

[enboig]

Sorry, I didn't explain myself correctly. I was asking if it was possible to create a new repository (with new format) and have a command similar to https://kopia.io/docs/advanced/synchronization/

[m3nu]

To keep multiple repos of the same source data you would add multiple repos to the config file. Then the data will go to all of them. This is more stable than having dependencies like when syncing repos. It's also how Borgmatic does it.

[enboig]

I have used it also to migrate repositories between providers. I know rclone can do the job, but this allowed working without downtime.

[enboig]

I checked and rustic (variant of restic) can also copy snapshots between repositories (https://rustic.cli.rs/docs/commands/misc/copy.html).

It could be useful if at some point, it is necessary to split a repository in two, moving some hosts (and all of its snapshots) to a new repo.

But the reality is that right now it would be useful to me for creating a repo with new format, start backing up to the new one, and in the background start copying old snapshots from the old repository to the new one.

[goebbe]

This is what is written on the rustic page: "This process will have to both download (read) and upload (write) the entire snapshot(s) due to the different encryption keys used in the source and destination repository. This may incur higher bandwidth usage and costs than expected during normal backup runs."

So, if I understand correctly, rustic copy does the following:

1. download (restore?) the specified snapshot including metadata and timestamps (to a temporary directory on the local machine)
2. create a new backup/snapshot from the (temporary, saved) snapshot to the new destination - as if the transferred snapshot was from the original source/ path
3. make sure that the metadata/ time/ date of the original snapshot are preserved/ transferred to the new destination.

In comparison, the use of rclone seems to be a much cleaner way to transfer repositories to a new destination (if required).

[enboig]

It may be cleaner; but if you want to:

• copy just some snapshots/hosts
• repositories have different encrytion keys
• repositories have different configuration

Then rustic way is necessary.

[enboig]

And I forgot about storage backends. At some point it may be a good idea having differences in repositores depending on which backend storage it is located (filesystem, filesystem + error correction, S3, S3 hot+cold, ...). Moving from "filesystem" to "s3 hot+cold" would need to rebuild the snapshots.

[enboig]

Despite looking similar with #197 I promise I didn't repost ;-)

It happens to me that after having used extensively multiple backup software (backuppc, spideroak, duplicati, restic, rustic, kopia) with multiple backends (s3, sftp, rest-server); and despite being really happy with vykar, sometimes I miss other software commands/interface.

This time I could have “migrated” my repository to new format (with a bandwidth and temporal storage cost).

I will continue with old format by now.