conserve 0.6.3

A robust backup tool.
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# Conserve: a robust backup program

<https://github.com/sourcefrog/conserve/>

[![Rust](https://github.com/sourcefrog/conserve/workflows/Rust/badge.svg?branch=master)](https://github.com/sourcefrog/conserve/actions?query=workflow%3ARust)
[![Linux build status](https://travis-ci.org/sourcefrog/conserve.svg?branch=master)](https://travis-ci.org/sourcefrog/conserve)
[![Windows build status](https://ci.appveyor.com/api/projects/status/uw61cgrek8ykfi7g?svg=true)](https://ci.appveyor.com/project/sourcefrog/conserve)
[![crates.io](https://img.shields.io/crates/v/conserve.svg)](https://crates.io/crates/conserve)
![Maturity: Beta](https://img.shields.io/badge/maturity-beta-yellow.svg)
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Conserve's [guiding principles](doc/manifesto.md):

* **Safe**: Conserve is written in [Rust][rust], a fast systems programming
  language with compile-time guarantees about types, memory safety, and
  concurrency.
  Conserve uses a [conservative log-structured format](doc/format.md).

* **Robust**:  If one file is corrupted in storage or due
  to a bug in Conserve, or if the backup is interrupted, you can still
  restore what was written.  (Conserve doesn't need a large transaction to
  complete for data to be accessible.)

* **Careful**: Backup data files are never touched or altered after they're
  written, unless you choose to purge them.

* **When you need help now**: Restoring a subset of a large backup is fast,
  because it doesn't require reading the whole backup.

* **Always making progress**: Even if the backup process or its network
  connection is repeatedly killed, Conserve can quickly pick up
  where it left off and make forward progress.

* **Ready for today**: The storage format is fast and reliable on on
  high-latency, limited-capability, unlimited-capacity, eventually-consistent
  cloud object storage.

* **Fast**: Conserve exploits Rust's *fearless concurrency* to make full use
  of multiple cores and IO bandwidth. (In the current release there's still room
  to add more concurrency.)

* **Portable**: Conserve is tested on Windows, Linux (x86 and ARM),
  and OS X.


## Quick start guide

Conserve storage is within an *archive* directory created by `conserve init`:

    conserve init /backup/home.cons

`conserve backup` copies a source directory into a new *version* within the archive.
Conserve copies files, directories, and (on Unix) symlinks.
If the `conserve backup` command completes successfully (copying the whole
source tree), the backup is considered *complete*.

    conserve backup /backup/home.cons ~

`conserve versions` lists the versions in an archive,
whether or not the backup is *complete*,
the time at which the backup started,
and the time taken to complete it.
Each version is identified by a name starting with `b`.

    $ conserve versions /backup/home.cons
    b0000                      complete   2016-11-19T07:30:09+11:00     71s
    b0001                      incomplete 2016-11-20T06:26:46+11:00
    b0002                      incomplete 2016-11-20T06:30:45+11:00
    b0003                      complete   2016-11-20T06:42:13+11:00    286s
    b0004                      complete   2016-12-01T07:08:48+11:00     84s
    b0005                      complete   2016-12-18T02:43:59+11:00      4s

`conserve ls` shows all the files in a particular version.  Like all commands
that read a band from an archive, it operates on the most recent by default, and
you can specify a different version using `-b`.  (You can also omit leading zeros
from the backup version.)

    $ conserve ls -b b0 /backup/home.cons | less

`conserve restore` copies a version back out of an archive:

    $ conserve restore /backup/home.cons /tmp/trial-restore

`conserve validate` checks the integrity of an archive:

    $ conserve validate /backup/home.cons

## Exclusions

The `--exclude GLOB` option can be given to commands that operate on files,
including `backup`, `restore`, `ls` and `list-source`.

A `/` at the start of the exclusion pattern anchors it to the top of the backup
tree (not the root of the filesystem.)  `**` recursively matches any number
of directories.

At the moment exclusion patterns must always start from the root, so you need
`**/*.swp` to exclude `.swp` files anywhere in the tree.

The syntax is comes from the Rust
[globset](https://docs.rs/globset/0.2.1/globset/#syntax) crate.

## Install

To build Conserve you need [Rust][rust] and a C compiler that can be used by
Rust.

To install the most recent release from crates.io, run

    cargo install conserve

To install from a git checkout, run

    cargo install -f --path .

[rust]: https://rustup.rs/
[sourcefrog]: http://sourcefrog.net/

On nightly Rust only, you can enable a potential speed-up to the blake2 hashes with

    cargo +nightly install -f --path . --features blake2_simd_asm

## More documentation

* [A comparison to other backup systems][comparison]

[comparison]: https://github.com/sourcefrog/conserve/wiki/Compared-to-others

* [Software and format versioning](doc/versioning.md)

* [Archive format](doc/format.md)

* [Design](doc/design.md)

* [Release notes](NEWS.md)

## Limitations

Conserve can reasonably be used for backups today: the format is stable, in my use it's reliable, and the basic features are
complete.

Be aware that Conserve is developed as a part-time non-commercial project and
there's no guarantee of support.

Some other limitations:

* `conserve validate` checks some [but not all possible propertises of the archive][5].
* `conserve diff` exists, [but is not yet very useful][21].
* [The `conserve purge` command to trim the backup archive is not implemented][43],
  but the `b0123` band directories can be deleted directly.
* [Permissions and ownership are not stored](https://github.com/sourcefrog/conserve/issues/46).

Prior to 1.0, data formats may change on each minor version number change (0.x):
you should restore using the same version that you used to make the backup.

[5]: https://github.com/sourcefrog/conserve/issues/5
[8]: https://github.com/sourcefrog/conserve/issues/8
[21]: https://github.com/sourcefrog/conserve/issues/21
[32]: https://github.com/sourcefrog/conserve/issues/32
[41]: https://github.com/sourcefrog/conserve/issues/41
[42]:https://github.com/sourcefrog/conserve/issues/42
[43]: https://github.com/sourcefrog/conserve/issues/43

For a longer list see the [issue tracker][issues] and
[milestones][milestones].

[issues]: https://github.com/sourcefrog/conserve/issues
[milestones]: https://github.com/sourcefrog/conserve/milestones

Windows Defender and Windows Search Indexing can slow the system down severely
when Conserve is making a backup.  I recommend you exclude the backup directory
from both systems.


## Licence and non-warranty

Copyright 2012-2020 [Martin Pool][sourcefrog], mbp@sourcefrog.net.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.