Changes

=== Purpose ===

=== Purpose ===

There are situations in backup process that Affa (with or without Rsync) can't handle well.

There are situations in backup process that [[Affa]] (with or without Rsync) can't handle well.

Imagine backing up user files in a company where documents are distributed on regular basis. It is very likely that all of your users will have a copy of the same file in their documents.

Imagine backing up user files in a company where documents are distributed on regular basis. It is very likely that all of your users will have a copy of the same file in their documents.

Freedup walks through the file trees (directories) you specify. When it finds two identical files on the same device, it hard links them together. In this case two or more files still exist in their respective directories, but only one copy of the data is stored on disk; both directory entries point to the same data blocks.  

Freedup walks through the file trees (directories) you specify. When it finds two identical files on the same device, it hard links them together. In this case two or more files still exist in their respective directories, but only one copy of the data is stored on disk; both directory entries point to the same data blocks.  

Rsync partially does this, but it won't search for identical files within your backup. This software does just that. '''In my case I saved ONE THIRD of the backup diskspace on one single backup alone.''' And what is more, FreeDup found more identical files within backups' trees themselves, hence correcting Rsync and saving me terabytes of space.

Rsync partially does this, but it won't search for identical files within your backup. This software does just that.  

'''Without FreeDup's hardlinks my current off-site backup would be 3.4TB, but instead it is only 270MB. That is 12 backups in total - 3x monthly, 4x weekly and 5x daily backups + the current backup running.'''

This document describes the installation and configuration options of the freedup in Affa's post job for the purpose to reclaim free space on your disk occupied by duplicate files.

  http://software.neuper.de/freedup/download.html

  yum install freedup --enablerepo=dag

=== Usage ===

=== Usage ===

 

To use FreeDup with Affa, first install and setup latest version of Affa. Installation instructions for Affa can be found [[:Affa | here]].

To use FreeDup with Affa, first install and setup latest version of Affa.

Then add this

Then add this

Command line options are beyond the scope of this document, in my case I only use -T to preserve timestamps and -v for some verbosity.

Command line options are beyond the scope of this document, in my case I only use -T to preserve timestamps and -v for some verbosity.

=== Various Tests ===

=== Various Tests ===

To see how much your backup occupies, you may find these commands below useful.

To see how much your backup occupies, you may find these commands below useful.

  find <insert your directory with backups> -xdev -type f -links +1 -printf '%i %p\n' | sort -n > links.txt

  find <insert your directory with backups> -xdev -type f -links +1 -printf '%i %p\n' | sort -n > links.txt

=== NOTE! ===

===User experience===

 

In my case I saved ONE THIRD of the backup diskspace on one single backup alone. And what is more, FreeDup found more identical files within backups' trees themselves, hence correcting Rsync and saving me terabytes of space.

Please be aware that once you launch FreeDup, it can take several hours to complete, depending on the size of backups as it its algorithm is making sure that files that are to be hardlinked are the same. My backups

 

Also, make sure you have the latest version of Affa, at the time of writing this document, it is this one:

 

http://neddix.com/sme7/smeserver-affa-1.0.0-2.el4.sme.noarch.rpm

 

 

[[Category:Backup]]

[[Category:Backup]]