# git as a backup tool? 4 messages from 2007-05-14 to 2007-05-15. Participants: Geert Uytterhoeven, Ron Parker, Russell, Peter Baumann. Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/8144 ## Geert Uytterhoeven, 2007-05-14 11:48 Subject: git as a backup tool? Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/Pine.LNX.4.64.0705141334120.20215%40anakin ``` Hi, Has anyone considered using git as a backup tool? I.e. - put your whole file system in git - do `git add .; git commit -a' from cron - copy .git to external media once in a while - clean up old stuff (unused and older than xx days) from .git Thanks! Gr{oetje,eeting}s, Geert -- Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@linux-m68k.org In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that. -- Linus Torvalds ``` ## Ron Parker, 2007-05-14 22:53 Subject: RE: git as a backup tool? Message-ID: <769697AE3E25EF4FBC0763CD91AB1B0201D496EA@MBGMail01.mobot.org> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/769697AE3E25EF4FBC0763CD91AB1B0201D496EA%40MBGMail01.mobot.org In-Reply-To: ``` > Geert Uytterhoeven wrote: > Has anyone considered using git as a backup tool? I.e. At the very least you would have a lot of chgrp/chown work to do after a "restore". Git stores file mode, but not ownership information, ACL's or extended attributes. I found this out when I tried using git to backup part of BOINC development server. Various files and directories had to have different ownership and extended attributes (for SELinux). -- Ron Parker ``` ## Russell, 2007-05-15 05:09 Subject: Re: git as a backup tool? Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/c1b8b6670705142209x267e44cbrea26aa8818275aea%40mail.gmail.com In-Reply-To: ``` On 5/14/07, Geert Uytterhoeven wrote: > Hi, > > Has anyone considered using git as a backup tool? I.e. > - put your whole file system in git > - do `git add .; git commit -a' from cron > - copy .git to external media once in a while > - clean up old stuff (unused and older than xx days) from .git I'm using git to backup my private email, all in Maildir format, in that manner. In addition, I push to a remote bare repository automatically, using ssh host keys. The most annoying issue was trying to prevent spam getting stuck in the mail history. I do this by having the "unsure" mail folder in a different place, and then having a symlink from the mail store point there so mutt can still find it easily if needed. Backing up a whole home directory would require careful thought about what _not_ to backup, similar to the spam issue. You probably wouldn't want to backup things that you download off the net and can easily retrieve again, like foo-1.2.tar.gz etc. I'm not sure what you mean by cleaning up old stuff. git (or at least my usage of it) requires the whole history to be in the repository. I haven't looked at shallow clones or other ways to prune history. -- Virus found in this message. ``` ## Peter Baumann, 2007-05-15 05:51 Subject: Re: git as a backup tool? Message-ID: <20070515055132.GC5493@xp.machine.xx> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20070515055132.GC5493%40xp.machine.xx In-Reply-To: ``` On Tue, May 15, 2007 at 01:09:06PM +0800, Russell wrote: > On 5/14/07, Geert Uytterhoeven wrote: > > Hi, > > > > Has anyone considered using git as a backup tool? I.e. > > - put your whole file system in git > > - do `git add .; git commit -a' from cron > > - copy .git to external media once in a while > > - clean up old stuff (unused and older than xx days) from .git > > I'm using git to backup my private email, all in Maildir format, in > that manner. In addition, I push to a remote bare repository > automatically, using ssh host keys. > > The most annoying issue was trying to prevent spam getting stuck in > the mail history. I do this by having the "unsure" mail folder in a > different place, and then having a symlink from the mail store point > there so mutt can still find it easily if needed. > > Backing up a whole home directory would require careful thought about > what _not_ to backup, similar to the spam issue. You probably > wouldn't want to backup things that you download off the net and can > easily retrieve again, like foo-1.2.tar.gz etc. > > I'm not sure what you mean by cleaning up old stuff. git (or at least > my usage of it) requires the whole history to be in the repository. I > haven't looked at shallow clones or other ways to prune history. > There was already a discussion about using git for backup in [1], which is probabily worth reading. For cleaning up old history Junio explained a very elegant solution in [2]. -Peter [1]: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/33887 [2]: http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/34455 ```