Duplicity backup configuration

Amedee · October 13, 2024, 12:31pm

I am curious how the Duplicity backup configuration is done.
I poked around a bit on the box but didn’t find obvious config files.

I would like to know which directories are backed op. And maybe if I can exclude some directories, like all the Spam folders.

stylnchris · October 16, 2024, 10:44pm

basically it’s my understanding that everything in

/home/user-data

is backed up.

Scripts are in /root/mailinabox/management/
script is backup.py

Amedee · October 19, 2024, 6:24pm

Thanks for your reply.
I found where the backup actually runs on line 313:

github.com

mail-in-a-box/mailinabox/blob/1699ab8c02e6813075a65fff9903c85e31d52445/management/backup.py#L313C1-L330C32


      
          	# Run a backup of STORAGE_ROOT (but excluding the backups themselves!).
          	# --allow-source-mismatch is needed in case the box's hostname is changed
          	# after the first backup. See #396.
          	try:
          		shell('check_call', [
          			"/usr/bin/duplicity",
          			"full" if full_backup else "incr",
          			"--verbosity", "warning", "--no-print-statistics",
          			"--archive-dir", backup_cache_dir,
          			"--exclude", backup_root,
          			"--volsize", "250",
          			"--gpg-options", "'--cipher-algo=AES256'",
          			"--allow-source-mismatch",
          			*get_duplicity_additional_args(env),
          			env["STORAGE_ROOT"],
          			get_duplicity_target_url(config),
          			],
          			get_duplicity_env_vars(env))

Then I read the Duplicity manual and I would need to add additional --exclude options there, or maybe --exclude-filelist or --exclude-globbing-filelist.

That would imply changing lines in a file that is provided by the Mailinabox project.
I’m not afraid of doing that, it’s just a hassle. I’ll put it on my todo list and I’ll probably do it with Ansible.

Those lines haven’t changed in the last 9 years so the chance they’ll change upstream is very low. Which makes them a good candidate for my Ansible shenanigans.