Re: Custom balance alert notifications

[Graham Percival <gperciva@tarsnap.com>]

Hi,

Oops; as John Doherty pointed out, my email was unclear.  The monthly
invoices are sent via email; a physical mailing address is only required
to show why non-Canadians aren't paying Canadian tax.

Signing up for monthly emails has another benefit: if something changes
in the email setup and you can't receive emails from mail.tarsnap.com,
there's a chance that you'll notice the missing monthly emails and
investigate.  This isn't a foolproof system -- it's hard to notice the
lack of a monthly email -- but at least it's another chance.


As for deleting archives from X years ago, there are a number of
third-party archive management scripts; some of which can probably do
that:
https://www.tarsnap.com/helper-scripts.html

If you want to maintain a database yourself, that's of course quite
reasonable.  Another option would be to run:
    tarsnap --list-archive -v
to see a list of archive names and dates.  You could do that once a
year, and prune the "too old" archives.  (That avoids the step of
keeping a database yourself.)

Cheers,
- Graham

On Sat, Mar 09, 2024 at 11:20:37AM -0800, jerry wrote:
> Well,
> 
>    I've solved my email woes.  I think.  I have successfully installed
> and enabled SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and TLS.  So I'll be ready to start a new
> Tarsnap account.  The problem with incoming mail was a badly implemented
> fail2ban filter.  For now, I just deleted it.
> 
>   Here's a feature request though.  Nothing to do with billing.
> 
>   I'd like to be able to specify a lifetime for each archive.  I really
> have no interest in being able to reconstitute a machine from 10 years ago.
> 
>   Could probably do it on this end - just have my backup task maintain a
> database of archives with their dates and names, and auto delete any one
> that's older than a couple of years.
> 
>   Not really interested in paper invoices.  I detest paper.  Have way too
> much of it already.  In fact, tarsnap is part of my general "eliminate
> paper"
> strategy.
> 
>               - JerryK
> 
> 
> On 2024-03-09 10:58, Graham Percival wrote:
> > At the moment, all Canadians receive invoices (which include balance
> > notifications) once a month.  Non-Canadians can receive them upon
> > request (although a physical mailing address is required for the
> > invoice).
> > https://www.tarsnap.com/faq.html#monthly-invoices
> > 
> > I know that this isn't exactly what you're requesting, but at least the
> > monthly invoices are something that's already in place.
> > 
> > (Albeit at the cost of sending Colin an email, and providing a physical
> > mailing address.  Also, a single item halfway down the FAQ page might
> > not be the easiest way to discover this option.)
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > - Graham
> > 
> > On Sat, Mar 09, 2024 at 07:46:45AM -0600, Lonnie Abelbeck wrote:
> > > New Feature request,  (Followup to "Tarsnap died" thread)
> > > 
> > > Consider adding a "Balance Alert" tab
> > > 
> > > Accounts -> Manage account -> Balance Alert
> > > 
> > > -=-=-=-
> > > 
> > > Balance Alert notifications sent to "user@domain.tld":
> > > 
> > > o- Only when balance is low or negative (default)
> > > 
> > > o  Additional balance notifications once per year
> > > 
> > > o  Additional balance notifications once per month
> > > 
> > > -=-=-=-
> > > 
> > > Notes:
> > > 
> > > 1. The definition of "year" and "month" could be based on account
> > > creation date as t=0.
> > > 
> > > 2. A { Test Alert Now } button, or "Send balance notification within
> > > 24 hours" checkbox, would also be useful.
> > > 
> > > 3. Big-tech email systems are constantly adding requirements for
> > > email to land in the inbox, (ex: require SPF and DKIM headers).  So
> > > being able to know if Tarsnap alert emails are being received would
> > > be useful.
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Lonnie
> > >