Re: [Duplicity-talk] reduce size of cache

[hamish-duplicity]

On 28/7/22 20:08, edgar.soldin--- via Duplicity-talk wrote:
> On 28.07.2022 10:48, Hamish Moffatt via Duplicity-talk wrote:
> > I have full and incremental backups of a large amount of data going 
> > back 4 years, for which the duplicity cache is consuming 139Gb(!) on 
> > one machine alone.
> >
> > Is there a current and supported way to remove old signatures from 
> > the cache such that they can be restored in the future if required? I 
> > don't mind how manual this process is.
> >
> > I realize this has been asked in the past and the previous reluctant 
> > recommendation was to use cleanup --extra-clean, but that option was 
> > removed in 2020.
> >
> > If so, what is the process for removing the old signatures, and what 
> > is the process for getting them back from remote if required?
>
> hey Hamish,
>
> as `--extra-clean` tended to break backups it was no safe option.
>
> if you don't mind manual intervention i'd suggest changing the 
> target(-folder) by interval, say every year or so. regular full 
> backups are recommended anyway to minimize chain corruption, so that 
> seems like a feasible workaround.
>
> after switching the target you can delete the previous archive-dir, as 
> it is only needed for incrementals or restore and will be recreated if 
> needed. using option `-name` might ease to find the correct 
> archive-dir per target(-folder).


Thanks Ede and Ken for your replies,

I've changed my target path on the remote and my name/archive-name in 
the configuration as suggested, and will do this annually. I use duply, 
so I started a new profile (as duply sets archive-dir and name itself 
for duplicity).

Restores are very rare (as we have more accessible backups using 
filesystem snapshots), so I don't mind that they are less convenient.


Hamish