On Mon, Oct 7, 2013 at 3:27 PM, Joseph R. Justice <jayare...@gmail.com>wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 23, 2013 at 7:05 AM, Alaric Snell-Pym <ala...@snell-pym.org.uk > > wrote: > > >> I've written a backup/archival tool based on content-addressible >> storage, and a common question people ask is "So why don't I just put my >> home directory/entire filesystem in git, then?", and I have to raise >> this aspect of the quite different goals between backup and source >> control :-) >> > > I note that there are people who *do* put their home directories, .rc > files, etc under source control. (IIRC, I've read stories in, like, Linux > Journal, lwn.net, blog stories, etc.) I have the distinct impression > that, often, at least part of the reason for doing this is that the user > has multiple systems they regularly use, and they wish to keep the personal > configuration details and I suppose also the personal data stored on/for > for each system as consistent between systems as is reasonably achievable > to achieve. > I've tried it all. /etc and home dir in various revision control tools, rsync, unison, etc to sync home directories and or subsets thereof between machines. I even used coda (http://www.coda.cs.cmu.edu/) for a while. I've settled on a methodology of sorts and both agree and disagree with Alaric. The goals of backup and source control are different but the overlap in required behaviour is almost 100% so it is quite natural to think of using SCM tools for backup. What (D)SCM's have that backup systems do not is a way to intelligently update files in the managed area. I.e. backup systems do not have a concept analogous to "fossil update" so they cannot gracefully patch in changes from some other time or location. What backup systems have that SCM's generally do not is capacity. Neither fossil nor git do well with 100's of thousands of files and terabytes of data. Also most backup systems preserve special files, named pipes, permissions and sometimes hard links. For safe data, minimum effort I start with MooseFS to keep my home directory, photos, music, videos etc. spread out over multiple disks and multiple machines. This seems to be a lot less work than using btrfs, zfs or other methods of doing raid whatever. I like that I can replicate my data over three machines in near real time with zero burden on my attention and decent performance. For long term archiving I currently use bup. I'd rather use Alaric's Ugarit but it doesn't work on my system right now and I haven't had time to track down the problem. However most important of all is using fossil for almost everything of value. Here I break the rules and use the tool for both revision control, backup and sync between systems. The purists are recoiling in horror but it works for me and I love it. I did the same thing with Monotone for years with great success. The distributed SCM model is heaven and fossil is a wonderful implementation of that model. Sometimes the best tool for a job is a whole box of tools ... > Joseph > > > _______________________________________________ > fossil-users mailing list > fossil-users@lists.fossil-scm.org > http://lists.fossil-scm.org:8080/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fossil-users > > -- Matt -=- 90% of the nations wealth is held by 2% of the people. Bummer to be in the majority...
_______________________________________________ fossil-users mailing list fossil-users@lists.fossil-scm.org http://lists.fossil-scm.org:8080/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fossil-users
