Re: [BackupPC-users] Fwd: Deleting all copies of a file from pool

I have been successfully deleting files from backups for some time. I use basic a basic `find <dir> -iname <name> -exec rm {} \;` to hunt down files and delete them. I have never had any problems recovering the data as the restore process doesnt have a file list it goes off of but just processes each file in the directory.

to delete all mp3 files from the pc directories

I like to use regular expressions as it reduces the chance of getting the wrong files.

find /path/to/backuppc/pc/ -regex './.*\.mp3$ \*.mp3 -exec rm {} \;

be carefull with find and regex as you need the ./ at the front. ./ in this circumstance is specifically "begins with a directory". then .* which is anycharacter followed by any number of any characters, \.mp3 is saying use a real period instead of the any wildcard that . represents followed by mp3, the $ means the end of the line so you wont match a file like
/path/path/info_on.mp3.files.txt
but would match
/path/path/info_on.mp3

you dont need to do anything with the cpool/pool as the backuppc_nightly will clean that up. Also, the file names there are mangled beyond recognition so find would help you anyway.

I use -or and search for video files, mp3 files, temp files
abbr vers:
find /path/to/pc/ -regex './.*\.mp3$' -or -regex './.*\.avi$' -or -regex './.*\.mpg$' -or -regex './.*\.mpeg$' -exec rm{} \;

I run it in this way because then find only runs through the filesystem 1 time where running these seperately would run it over and over.

Also, you need to be aware of the filename mangling done so you cannot search for /myfile.ext but instead must search for /.myfile.ext or /.*myfile.ext (with regext) or /*myfile.ext if you are using the standard wildcard *

good luck.

On Sun, Nov 22, 2009 at 11:53 AM, Justin Guenther <jguenther AT gmail DOT com> wrote:

[reposted from backuppc-devel due to lack of response]

Hello all,

I have come across this problem frequently -- backups are running
great, then one day I notice that backups are bigger than they should
be. I look into it, and a large file was copied somewhere that got
backed up but shouldn't have. I've searched around and can't find an
answer to this one, forgive me if I overlooked a solution.

I can add an exclusion and wait for the file to expire from the pool,
but for my configuration this takes months.

1) is there a current (safe) way to delete a file from the pool/cpool
and from all backups
2) if not, what would this take? I would have to delete the entry in
the pool/cpool, and the link(s) to it from the individual pc/backup#/
subdirectories, but would this be all I would need to do? I am not too
worried about updating backup stats (size, compressed size, etc) but
for completeness sake it would be nice to know exactly where I would
need to look to update that information.

Thanks,
Justin Guenther

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