Re: git as a backup tool?

[Russell <russellsteicke@gmail.com>]

On 5/14/07, Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@linux-m68k.org> 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.



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