[Dirvish] Combining branches after upgrades

[Darren Hook]

Hi Keith,

On 9/29/07, Keith Lofstrom <keithl at kl-ic.com> wrote:
> Since version 2.6.4, rsync has allowed multiple --link-dest target
> directories.  If a file is not found in the first --link-dest target,
> rsync will search the next --link-dest target, then the next, and so

Hrmm, I can't comment on your idea but, related in some way...

I did spot the multiple --link-dest thing (or was it --compare-dest?)
when skimming through the man recently and wondered - could this also
be used to kick-start from failed backups?

That is, to use all failed backups up until the last successful image
as additional references and once a job is successful, the failed
snapshots could then be deleted.

How it would work?

I guess failures could be added to the .hist file as such, so that
dirvish could track them and include only the last set of failures as
--link-dest's.

I do backups over the 'net and often find that on the rare occasions
of failure, it gets stuck on a fairly large file - often after other
large files have already been transferred. If it can pick up pretty
much from where it left off, that would save a lot of bandwidth and
lessen the potential for it to fail yet again.

 - Darren Hook