[tahoe-dev] for your consideration: rename "tahoe backup" to "tahoe snapshot"

[Brian]

On 4/22/13 8:54 PM, Zooko O'Whielacronx wrote:

> https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/1952# rename "tahoe
> backup" to "tahoe snapshot"

-1. "tahoe backup" is a *great* backup tool. It records all the
interesting metadata, it creates immutable timestamped snapshots, and
manages a "Current" link in addition to retaining the historical copies.
It avoids doing extra work when copying files that are already in the
grid, but still arranges for checking/verifying/re-upload on a periodic
basis, with randomized soft-edged timeouts to avoid big spikes of load.
It provides nearly identical functionality to Apple's very popular Time
Machine backup tool.

It just lacks a corresponding restore tool. That's not tahoe-backup's
fault. "tahoe cp -r" isn't "tahoe restore". And that's not tahoe-cp's
fault either. It's my fault for only writing half of the backup/restore
pair.

If you'd like a "tahoe snapshot", we should write one! What would it do
differently? What I remember hearing you say on IRC was that the
metadata (captured by os.stat) was in the wrong place, or was named
weirdly.

Maybe "tahoe cp -r --immutable" should acquire a "use the backupdb"
option? Do you often copy the same local directories into the same grid
multiple times, and would thus benefit from the avoid-work properties of
the backupdb?

I'll continue the discussion in ticket #1946.

cheers,
  -Brian