Re: [Tails-dev] Feedback wanted on planned implementation of…

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Autore: intrigeri
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To: The Tails public development discussion list
Oggetto: Re: [Tails-dev] Feedback wanted on planned implementation of Feature #5301 - Clone or Backup Persistent Volume
Hi,

CustaiCo wrote (17 Mar 2014 23:00:10 GMT) :
> The backup step would ensure that persistence has been enabled and mounted,
> and then go into /live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/ then run something that
> would be the equivalent of something like this


> tar cjf - . | gpg --cipher-algo AES -c - > /home/amnesia/YYYY-MM-DD-backup.tbz2.gpg


I agree with the general idea, and will only discuss its
implementation here.

I'm wary of having to maintain yet another shiny new piece of code
that does basically tar|gpg. I'm sure the initial implementation would
be very straightforward, but I'm also convinced that there are tons of
corner cases to handle, that one initially does not think of. And once
we take it all into account, then we get a large piece of code to
maintain all by ourselves, because it was meant only for Tails' needs.

So, I would try not to reinvent this wheel, and use an existing,
proven solution instead.

I would suggest looking into duplicity (http://duplicity.nongnu.org/)
first: it supports something that's basically "tar | gpg" for the
first iteration, and it also leaves room for future improvements,
thanks to its support for incremental and/or remote backups. Also, it
allows users to restore or inspect their backups outside of Tails,
without having to manually decipher yet another backup file format.

There are probably other plausible candidates worth comparing with
duplicity :)

Cheers,
--
intrigeri
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