Hello Steve,
There are some differences in storage layout between BackupPC V3 and V4.
Because this you can't
apply a 20 year old documentation 😁️.
In BackupPC V4 all files are stored only once in ../pool/??/??/ or in
../cpool/??/??/.
You can delete this file in [c]pool but you will harvest on "admin :
BackupPC_refCountUpdate:
missing pool file <hex-number>" in your log file.
What you have to do to remove the file (e.g. for bash):
1. find the name of the poolfile
- hex=$(sudo -u backuppc $bpcBin/BackupPC_attribPrint
/var/lib/backuppc/pc/<yourHost>/<bckNr>/f<share>/<path>/attrib_* |
grep -A2 <yourFileName> | grep
-A2 "{" | grep digest | awk '{print $3}')
- hex=${hex:1:${#hex}-3}
- hex1=$(printf "%02x" $(( 0x${hex:0:2}/2*2)))
- hex2=$(printf "%02x" $(( 0x${hex:2:2}/2*2)))
2. remove the pool-file
1. rm -f ../[c]pool/$hex1/$hex2/$hex
I've never done it - so be carefully and test it :)
What I'd propose - and I'll do this soon - would be to find a small pool-file
and create a hardlink.
So your 8GB file is linked to this small pool-file and is using no additional
size.
Br
Matthias
Am Montag, dem 01.09.2025 um 11:37 +0100 schrieb Steve Richards:
> I have accidentally allowed BackupPC to backup some very large files (3 x
> ~8GB) from one of my
> hosts. I don't need them backed up and would like to get rid of them from the
> backup storage. If I
> understand correctly that would mean removing stuff from BackupPC's pool
> system. Can I do that
> safely?
>
> I found a very old post (20+ years ago) about deleting from the pool but I
> know BackupPC has had
> at least one major revision in that time and I don't know whether the advice
> back then is still
> appropriate with current versions. The post says:
>
> # cd __TOPDIR__/pc/
> # find . -name *.mp3
> <you should see a list of your .mp3 files here. if it looks like a good list
> (i.e. you didn't typo something that will be painful to fix), go to the next
> step.>
> # find . -name *.mp3 -exec rm -f {} \;
>
> On my installation (v4.4.0) that doesn't seem to find any files matching the
> search pattern
> (*.raw in my case), or indeed any identifiable files, which makes me wonder
> if the pooling
> mechanism and structure might have changed. In any case I don't want to mess
> with anything low-
> level without up to date advice. The "rogue" files were first backed-up only
> a couple of days ago,
> so I would be happy to delete all backups from that date if that would help.
>
> Thanks.
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> Project: https://backuppc.github.io/backuppc/
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