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Xare's avatar
Xare
Level 3
8 years ago

Incremental backup using dynamic file list

Hi,

we have an application that maintains "projects" in about 400 directories with a total of 4TB data on one client machine. We want to backup only a couple of these directories. The application tells us on a daily basis which directories shall be backed up (because they are currently relevant). We are using bpbackup -f listFile on the client side for this - it works fine. Using this scheme we always back up only the currently relevant projects, while the backup storage for projects that became irrelevant is freed after six weeks. Typically we use not more than 300GB of backup storage.

However, this does a full backup every time, even if only some files have changed. Using the root directory of the 400 directories is not an option, since many of the 400 will never be relevant for backup. How can we get an incremental backup for this kind of setup?

Cheers, -Xare

bpbackup
incremental
  • Marianne's avatar
    Marianne
    8 years ago
    Try the same process with INCLUDE as keyword in the text file.

    Please remember that Incrementals will only work when you are using automatic schedules in the policy - Full and Diff Incr/ Cumm Incr in the same policy.
    User type schedule can only perform Full backup .

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  • Mike_Gavrilov's avatar
    Mike_Gavrilov
    Level 6
    8 years ago

    It isn't clear from your decription how doesn your application work but if your "irrelevant" data stays the same you can use accelerator. It skips uncanged data and backups only changed files according to its tracklog (it also can use some filesystems journal files).

    >Using the root directory of the 400 directories is not an option, since many of the 400 will never be relevant for backup. 

    You can dynamically modify exclude list on the client  and use root folder of those 400 dirs as a backup selection :)

    • Marianne's avatar
      Marianne
      Level 6
      8 years ago

      You are doing a User type backup (bpbackup -f ...) not an automatic scheduled backup from the master where the Backup Selection is hardcoded.

      User backup has no option to specify full or incr, therefore only full backup is possible with User type backup.

      Only automatic scheduled backup have Full and Incr schedules.

       

    • Xare's avatar
      Xare
      Level 3
      8 years ago

      > You can dynamically modify exclude list on the client  and use root folder as a backup selection

      We have Windows 7 on the client side. Here the include/exclude list for a server side backup are only managed via the GUI NbWin.exe in the menu "File / NetBackup Client Properties". I do not see how the lists can be managed automatically. Or are they available in the file system?