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Please add backup "name" or "id" to config #1520
Description
Right now backups are identified by "sources":
[[backup.snapshots]]
sources = [ "/home" ]
tags = [ "home" ]
So I can run rustic backup /home and it'll automatically apply all settings like "home" tag, hooks, etc.
The problem is when I want to say rustic backup /home but In fact I need to backup different folder due to btrfs snapshots:
So the idea is to decouple "snapshot" selection from actual source path to backup and get something like:
[[backup.snapshots]]
name = "/home"
sources = [ "/mnt/snapshot/home" ]
tags = [ "home" ]
as-path = "/home"
hooks.run_before = [ "btrfs subvolume snapshot -r /home /mnt/snapshot/home" ]
hooks.run_finally = [ "btrfs subvolume delete -c /mnt/snapshot/home" ]
Basically I still can do it like this and just run as rustic backup /mnt/snapshot/home. But it less convenient.
Maybe we can name it as id = @home and use rustic backup @home syntax
Activity
rdelaage commentedon Aug 17, 2025
As far as I understand, you can use a label for that
dionorgua commentedon Aug 17, 2025
@rdelaage I don't see how label can be used here. As far as I see it's just generic "comment" that can be added to backup.
So yes. Technically it can be reused as sort of backup 'id' field, (while it'll be sad to loose comment field).
But I don't see a way to explicitly tell
rusticto run only backups with certain label.rdelaage commentedon Aug 17, 2025
I understand the label field as a name for the snapshot, so you could say that the snapshots of your home folder are named "/home" using
rustic backup --label home /mnt/snapshot/homeand use this label when you want to apply a retention policy or to restore the datarustic restore --filter-label home latest myrestorefolderYou also have a description field for comments
dionorgua commentedon Aug 17, 2025
The issue here is not retention policy or other filtering stuff after backup at all. I'm completely fine to write that for
/mnt/snapshot/homeif needed.The issue is that I want to be able to reference backups by id or real source path before/during backup. Without using temporary mount points
aawsome commentedon Aug 20, 2025
@dionorgua In #1531 I added the possibility to use
id = "id_name"in the config and then userustic backup --id id_nameto only backup this snapshot config. Feel free to try it out!aawsome commentedon Sep 1, 2025
@dionorgua is now implemented using
nameand--name, see #1531feat: Add --name option to select snapshot(s) from config to backup (r…