From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Russell Subject: Re: git as a backup tool? Date: Tue, 15 May 2007 13:09:06 +0800 Message-ID: References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: git@vger.kernel.org X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Tue May 15 07:09:12 2007 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git@gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.176.167]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1HnpHb-0000xO-QE for gcvg-git@gmane.org; Tue, 15 May 2007 07:09:12 +0200 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1754406AbXEOFJI (ORCPT ); Tue, 15 May 2007 01:09:08 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1756330AbXEOFJI (ORCPT ); Tue, 15 May 2007 01:09:08 -0400 Received: from nz-out-0506.google.com ([64.233.162.226]:17091 "EHLO nz-out-0506.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1754406AbXEOFJH (ORCPT ); Tue, 15 May 2007 01:09:07 -0400 Received: by nz-out-0506.google.com with SMTP id r28so12425nza for ; Mon, 14 May 2007 22:09:06 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=Mx2NRVHEw1u+zjyTiT96+SDQv3g7B9dD2ztdO3404YJYS8EiMrHQiPDLqRSpg/u4jWxASqugsKychGNnTQFOaeNW9yPB2kQios7iUSYfgyPVmWB7CyhjBbIbyhCNwqu80YSr5aIc47uUVYYPsYbuHrDXuO8bPZrqqpj389VTyWo= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=tpvi6fI7cE5GN/FLfPvk7r1HFUjIk0D+744uIU+FEKEHGXoBNclGllieDRHY+3MPhMcClfhY4j9txVCCaUsUHsGOlETIHgVaZdptjK7rYXbD3IzCPDBR+jFUJzwbmCakH8XKwNC4zJRSM0e1+XsK26zs3DMrCeOMF+cPLcDwh3g= Received: by 10.114.102.1 with SMTP id z1mr1342662wab.1179205746178; Mon, 14 May 2007 22:09:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.115.76.9 with HTTP; Mon, 14 May 2007 22:09:06 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: Content-Disposition: inline Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: 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.