Re: Questions about deja-dup

[Michael Terry <mike mterry name>]

Hello! Inline replies below.

On Wed, Feb 7, 2018, at 06:43, Anna Marei wrote:

Hello, I've started to learn how to use secure backup techniques and have a few open questions about deja-dup that have not been covered by articles yet. I hope someone on this list can help me!

1. I read that deja-dup uses gpg2 to encrypt the backups. Where and how can I set my own keys for this? In Evoulution Mail it works quite simply. It searches for existing keys.

Deja Dup only uses gpg2 for symmetric encryption (i.e. using a passphrase, not a key). Duplicity (the underlying backup tool) can use key-based encryption, if you require that. But deja-dup doesn't implement that side of things (we aim at more casual users who probably don't have a gpg key).

2. I saw that this feature request would still be very useful. https://bugs.launchpad.net/deja-dup/+bug/479191
But the request  was from 2009. Now it's 2018. Any progress on that?

No progress really. It hasn't been a focus for me.

3. Is it bad if I change the interval of backups from daily to weekly in an ongoing backup cycle, as described in https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/DejaDup/HowItWorks "Deleting old backups"?

No, that's fine.

4. What happens if only one of these backup files doesn't work anymore? I read i need all of them From full backup A to incremental backup A4.

If an incremental backup is corrupted somehow, you can restore up to the incremental before the corruption. Or the next full backup (which is one reason we occasionally make fresh full backups). But all incrementals after the corrupted volume will not be usable.

5. On the help section "Deleting old backups" i read that "Déjà Dup lets you specify that you want backups to be kept for a period of time (say, a month)" -> But there as the options seems to be hard coded here there is just 6month/1year/forver

Will you make it possible to select all the dates and periods manually in the nearby future? That's related to 2. as well.

The UI is restrictive in what options we allow. But you can set whatever period of time you want using dconf-editor (navigate to /org/gnome/deja-dup/delete-after).

Hope that helps!

-mt