Using vac for Unix backup has some shortcomings. I, too, used vbackup on FreeBSD (UFS2). Whether the different blocksize (on most disks: 32kB) to 8kB vac default may detrimental, is disputable. Now, I have moved to ZFS, and a different approach is needed. ZFS's own backup tools are useful only if the backup device is ZFS also. It is not known, wether a zfs-send stream would play nice with venti deduplication, and probably the send-stream files themselve are not very useful.
On a desktop system using a browser like chromium or firefox, we got a lot of files we simply don't want to backup. The browsers, and a lot of other desktop applications, scatter those files over several dot-named directories like .config, .local or .cache. Excluding dot-named files and directories from backup is a good idea, especially for .ssh, which contains secrets, which are not secret anymore, if backupped. I find it clumsy to instruct vac to do it right by filenames only. Here is my current exclude file for my own user directory: > exclude wb.vac > include .*rc > include .login > include .profile > include .xsession > exclude .* > exclude ....[gx]z > exclude ....bz2 > exclude ....img > exclude ....iso > exclude ....zip > exclude ....tar > exclude ....t[bgx]z > exclude ...octave-workspace > exclude Downloads A version usable for the /home directory would look like > include */.*rc > include */.login > include */.profile > include */.xsession > exclude */.* > exclude ....[gx]z > exclude ....bz2 > exclude ....img > exclude ....iso > exclude ....zip > exclude ....tar > exclude ....t[bgx]z > exclude ....tmp > exclude .../temp.* > exclude ...octave-workspace I am not really happy with this version, too. For files other than those in user directories, the restricted vac semantics (no file flags, eg.) will also limit the usefulness of plan9port vac as backup tool. ------------------------------------------ 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T5f59d7df5796d0cc-M68bafe46f0acf242efa628a0 Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
