[H-SASIG] rdiff-image-cron /etc/rdiff-image/rdiff-image.conf FAILED!

[Russell Stuart]

On Tue, 2010-02-02 at 16:24 +1000, Raymond Smith wrote:
> If I understood your original statement, you added these checks
> because there were two "excaliburs" backing up to S3 at the same time.
> If we simply disambiguate between the excaliburs then we don't need
> the check for this condition. We still need to delete the files though
> and each "excalibur" can and should delete backup files it does not
> need. If we still see undead files appearing then maybe some automated
> reaper is required.

You need the backups from the old excalibur for a while.  They are after
all the only ones you have for the period it was the real excalibur.  As
time goes on they should be purged as per the backup cycle.  The old
excalibur can't do that - it isn't around.  The new excalibur can't do
it, because the whole point of this idea of putting the backups from the
two excalibur's into separate S3 directories is ensure they don't touch
each others files, thus avoiding the need for the check.

And as I said, from the point of view of the poor bugger (or computer
program) trying to restore data from an old backup, these separate
directories are meaningless.  What he wants to see is one set of backups
are per the backup cycle - ie some hourly ones, some daily ones, yearly
ones and so on.  They are after all backups for the same thing,
excalibur.  The fact that it moved homes during this period is
irrelevant to him and just confuses what apparently is already a
confusing picture.

If indeed files are coming back from the dead on S3, the simple fix is
just to not complain about it, and that is what I will do.

I just have to be sure that is what is happening.  I have downloaded
some logs from S3, and they seem to agree with mine.  I use the word
"seem" they are not detailed enough to be sure.  For example, they tell
you have sent or deleted something - but not what it was.  The
resolution of the time stamps is 1 hour, but we do many things in an
hour.  Nothing is easy, it seems.