Topic: backup to workstation - decrease full backup frequency?

[wellsi]

Is it possible to decrease the frequency of the full backup?

workstation-backup-dar appears to have many magic numbers of '7'

The reason for the question is that with ~1TB of photos + music, the full backup needs to run ~24hours, but the data hardly changes.

I've seen that it is possible to run multiple sessions by making use of backupwk-Id so each 'Id' could have its own rotation length.


Is the answer to change the 7s into a db setting? If so should I raise a NFR in bugzilla?

[stephen noble]

The incremental backups should take next to no time.

If you don't want to run it weekly have more increments in your set

I use
Number of daily backups contained in each set is 21

set in the panel

[wellsi]

Looking at the code I see that this kind of works, but will give unexpected results. (I've prototyped this as I cannot wait weeks to verify on hardware, so I may be wrong)

"Full backup is allowed on" means which day should a new set start. It can only rotate a set on the day chosen, unless "Everyday" is chosen in which case the rotation can occur on any day. 

This means that the number of increments in a set is only equal to the "Daily backups in each set" if a multiple of 7. For instance choose 27, and you only get 21 increments, whereas 28 gives 28 increments. Or choose 3, and it gives 7 increments. (This assumes that "Full backup is allowed on" is not set to everyday).

I think that this should be documented - I'll add it to the documentation bug. http://bugs.contribs.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4858

I think that the summary is:

if you want the rotation, and full backup, to occur on a specified day, then choose that day in the panel, and choose a multiple of 7 for "Daily backups in each set".

if you want a fixed number of increments in each set, then choose "Full backup is allowed on" = Anyday.

If you want behaviour to be something else then raise a bug (and maybe a patch) on workstation-backup-dar.

[CharlieBrady]

Is the answer to change the 7s into a db setting? If so should I raise a NFR in bugzilla?

That's the only way you'll ever see any code change.

[wellsi]

That's the only way you'll ever see any code change.

I know

However I didn't know if my understanding of the feature was accurate, and it was at least partly wrong.
If what I have added above is correct then the functionality is fine, but needs to be better documented and that Bug has been raised. I don't think that there is any need for a code change.