Les Mikesell wrote:
> I suspect that most people using an external disk use more than one and 
> leave one connected most of the time.

I can't see myself ever doing that. I don't know why I would ever need 
two external disks.

> It would probably exit on such an error anyway, but there is a bigger 
> issue. You can't just disconnect a disk without unmounting first anyway 
> - and the disk isn't going to automatically mount in the right place 
> without some help either.

On my system the disk always reliably mounts on /media/Daniel. You just 
need to give the partition a label ("Daniel") which I would do anyways, 
simply because I like the disk having a memorable name.

Alternative, an appropriate entry in /etc/fstab using the disk's UUID 
can also make sure that the disk is always mounted in the correct path.

Anyways, checking that the backup directory exists seems like a no 
brainer, even if you don't think specifically of the case of external disks.


> Why not run a script to stop the service and 
> unmount and another to mount where it needs to be and start the service?

Ubuntu mounts the external disk automatically. I don't have to type 
"mount". In addition, to unmount, I usually use the GUI (right-click > 
unmount). It seems like a lot of hassle to fight the auto-mount 
mechanism for a simple check that IMO BackupPC should do anyways.

If I wrote a backup tool that was supposed to write to a certain 
directory, I would check that the directory exists even if I didn't 
think specifically of the case of external disks.

It's only a 2-3 line change. It doesn't seem like an unreasonable 
addition to BackupPC...

Daniel.

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