bit-team
Allow user to change directory names /backintime and ./<datetime>
Problem
The /backintime and ./<datetime> directory names add a lot of characters to path. Sometime paths in the backup are longer then the file system limitation.
Feature requests
Please add options to allow the user to change the /backintime directory name and the ./<datetime> directory name format.
Hello alp-km,
Thank you for taking the time to report the issue and providing the details. I appreciate your feedback, will investigate the issue, and work on a solution to the best of my ability.
We have several issues related to similar problems:
- #1304
- #1795
- #213
The new element brought into the topic by you is to customize the backup folder name (<datetime>), instead of the path only.
Beside the fact that it will be hard to modify BIT and its codebase to allow this, I am not convinced that this might be a good solution. One important feature of BIT is that its created backups can be read and handled in the file system without even using BIT. So from reading the folder names (as timestamps) you know when the backup was created.
I understand your problem with path lengths. But this could be solved with customize the backup path instead of the backup name. Do you have another good reason why the backup name (the directory) should be customize-able?
Please see the projects background information to get an idea about our workflow and priorities:
Best regards, Christian
Hello alp-km, I need some feedback and answers to my questions. Otherwise I am not able to go further with this issue.
Regards, Christian
Hello buhtz, I apologize for not responding for so long.
So from reading the folder names (as timestamps) you know when the backup was created.
I mean
Do you have another good reason why the backup name (the directory) should be customize-able?
Some users may want to hide the real backup directory (e.g. to use symlinks) or make the directory name shorter. This can only be done if the directory name is customizable.
We have several issues related to similar problems: Allow disabling of Host/User/Profile etc nesting #1304
I use profile settings with empty 'Host' and 'User' fields. Works fine.
To realize it a core behavior of BIT need to be modified. Not using the directory name as timestamp information but the file system object's creation date.
- I am not sure about consequences and implications. Need to think about it.
- It is more a nice to have, compared to all the other problems BIT currently has.
- Before implementing this BIT needs better test coverage and some other things. And to achive this some other core infrastructure need to be fixed/migrated/modifed, e.g. packaging (#1575).
I wouldn't say no. But from my current point of view it would take years until BIT is in a state where we can think about a modification like this. As a consequence I would prefer to close this issue, as a feature request, because I don't want to keep it open for 10 years or longer. Realisticaly it is out of the projects capabilities.
EDIT: About implications of using the creation date (st_ctime) of a directory. When the backups are moved from one filesystem to other, that date might get lost. I checked my own backups. I backups from 2017 with cdate in year 2021.
It's true, when the file is moved to another filesystem, the creation date may be lost; when the file is read by some app, the modification date may be changed too. But it's a good idea to store the backup's date and time to the file with general metadata in the backup directory.
I don't see an elegant and resources efficient way to implement this. There are to many implications. And the cost-benefit-calculation IMHO does not support it.
Closing this ticket based on the comment above. Feel free to reopen if the problem still exists. Thank you for your efforts. If you have any further questions, ideas or encounter any other issues, please don't hesitate to let us know.
Best regards, Christian