BUP-INDEX()

bup-index - print and/or update the bup filesystem indexbup index \-p|-m|-s|-u|--clear|--check\ [-H] [-l] [-x] [--fake-valid] [--no-check-device] [--fake-invalid] [-f indexfile] [--exclude path] [--exclude-from filename] [--exclude-rx pattern] [--exclude-rx-from filename] [-v] \<filenames...>bup index prints and/or updates the bup filesystem index, which is a cache of the filenames, attributes, and sha-1 hashes of each file and directory in the filesystem. The bup index is similar in function to the git(1) index, and can be found in $BUP_DIR/bupindex.

Creating a backup in bup consists of two steps: updating the index with bup index, then actually backing up the files (or a subset of the files) with bup save. The separation exists for these reasons:

1.  There is more than one way to generate a list of files that need to be backed up. For example, you might want to use inotify(7) or dnotify(7).

2.  Even if you back up files to multiple destinations (for added redundancy), the file names, attributes, and hashes will be the same each time. Thus, you can save the trouble of repeatedly re-generating the list of files for each backup set.

3.  You may want to use the data tracked by bup index for other purposes (such as speeding up other programs that need the same information).

    At the moment, bup will ignore Linux attributes (cf. chattr(1) and lsattr(1)) on some systems (any big-endian systems where sizeof(long) < sizeof(int)). This is because the Linux kernel and FUSE currently disagree over the type of the attr system call arguments, and so on big-endian systems there's no way to get the results without the risk of stack corruption (http://lwn.net/Articles/575846/). In these situations, bup will print a warning the first time Linux attrs are relevant during any index/save/restore operation.

bup makes accommodations for the expected "worst-case" filesystem timestamp resolution -- currently one second; examples include VFAT, ext2, ext3, small ext4, etc. Since bup cannot know the filesystem timestamp resolution, and could be traversing multiple filesystems during any given run, it always assumes that the resolution may be no better than one second.

As a practical matter, this means that index updates are a bit imprecise, and so bup save may occasionally record filesystem changes that you didn't expect. That's because, during an index update, if bup encounters a path whose actual timestamps are more recent than one second before the update started, bup will set the index timestamps for that path (mtime and ctime) to exactly one second before the run, -- effectively capping those values.

This ensures that no subsequent changes to those paths can result in timestamps that are identical to those in the index. If that were possible, bup could overlook the modifications.

You can see the effect of this behavior in this example (assume that less than one second elapses between the initial file creation and first index run):

    $ touch src/1 src/2
    # A "sleep 1" here would avoid the unexpected save.
    $ bup index src
    $ bup save -n src src  # Saves 1 and 2.
    $ date > src/1
    $ bup index src
    $ date > src/2         # Not indexed.
    $ bup save -n src src  # But src/2 is saved anyway.

Strictly speaking, bup should not notice the change to src/2, but it does, due to the accommodations described above.

-u, --update
    recursively update the index for the given filenames and their descendants. One or more filenames must be given. If no mode option is given, this is the default.

-p, --print
    print the contents of the index. If filenames are given, shows the given entries and their descendants. If no filenames are given, shows the entries starting at the current working directory (.).

-m, --modified
    prints only files which are marked as modified (ie. changed since the most recent backup) in the index. Implies -p.

-s, --status
    prepend a status code (A, M, D, or space) before each filename. Implies -p. The codes mean, respectively, that a file is marked in the index as added, modified, deleted, or unchanged since the last backup.

--check
    carefully check index file integrity before and after updating. Mostly useful for automated tests.

--clear
    clear the default index.

-H, --hash
    for each file printed, prepend the most recently recorded hash code. The hash code is normally generated by bup save. For objects which have not yet been backed up, the hash code will be

-l, --long
    print more information about each file, in a similar format to the -l option to ls(1).

-x, --xdev, --one-file-system
    don't cross filesystem boundaries when recursing through the filesystem -- though as with tar and rsync, the mount points themselves will still be indexed. Only applicable if you're using -u.

--fake-valid
    mark specified filenames as up-to-date even if they aren't. This can be useful for testing, or to avoid unnecessarily backing up files that you know are boring.

--fake-invalid
    mark specified filenames as not up-to-date, forcing the next "bup save" run to re-check their contents.

-f, --indexfile=indexfile
    use a different index filename instead of $BUP_DIR/bupindex.

--exclude=path
    exclude path from the backup (may be repeated).

--exclude-from=filename
    read --exclude paths from filename, one path per-line (may be repeated). Ignore completely empty lines.

--exclude-rx=pattern
    exclude any path matching pattern, which must be a Python regular expression (http://docs.python.org/library/re.html). The pattern will be compared against the full path, without anchoring, so "x/y" will match "ox/yard" or "box/yards". To exclude the contents of /tmp, but not the directory itself, use "^/tmp/.". (may be repeated)

    Examples:

    * '/foo$' - exclude any file named foo
    * '/foo/$' - exclude any directory named foo
    * '/foo/.' - exclude the content of any directory named foo
    * '^/tmp/.' - exclude root-level /tmp's content, but not /tmp itself

--exclude-rx-from=filename
    read --exclude-rx patterns from filename, one pattern per-line (may be repeated). Ignore completely empty lines.

--no-check-device
    don't mark a an entry invalid if the device number (stat(2) st_dev) changes. This can be useful when indexing remote, automounted, or (LVM) snapshot filesystems.

-v, --verbose
    increase log output during update (can be used more than once). With one -v, print each directory as it is updated; with two -v, print each file too.
    bup index -vux /etc /var /usr
    bup-save(1), bup-drecurse(1), bup-on(1)Part of the bup(1) suite.