Re: What all do I need to migrate tarsnap-gui setup to new MacBook?

[Graham Percival <gperciva@tarsnap.com>]

Hi Amar,

Yes, it's correct that the gui does not need the password if you already have
a keyfile.

Behind the scenes, the "verifying archive integrity" step is running
`tarsnap --fsck` to download archive metadata.  That's approximately 0.1% of
the total archive size:
https://www.tarsnap.com/multiple-machines.html
You can avoid this if you copy the cache directory from your old laptop to
your new one.  (as mentioned on that link)

Alternatively, you could skip over the setup wizard.  You have two options
here:
1) launch the setup wizard, then click on "skip wizard", then set up options
in the Settings tab.
2) copy your old tarsnap.db to the same location on the new laptop.  Then when
you launch tarsnap-gui, it should have the same options as you had on the old
machine.

The gui will probably prompt you to repair the cache; if it doesn't, then go
to Settings->Application->"Repair cache".  This will run the same `tarsnap
--fsck` operation, but this time you can see some progress messages clicking
on the bottom-left triangle.  For example, I get:

[2021-04-10 10:20 A.M.] Cache repair initiated.
[2021-04-10 10:20 A.M.] Cache repair succeeded.
[2021-04-10 10:20 A.M.] Updating archives list from remote...
[2021-04-10 10:20 A.M.] Updating archives list from remote... done.
[2021-04-10 10:20 A.M.] Fetching stats for archive xyz...

(Or, if you want to see the full information, use the "console log" option.)

In your case, I suspect that you have many archives so it's spending a lot of
time on this step.

I've added two issues: showing progress in the setupwizard, and adding an
import / export functionality:
https://github.com/Tarsnap/tarsnap-gui/issues/550
https://github.com/Tarsnap/tarsnap-gui/issues/549

Cheers,
- Graham

On Sat, Apr 10, 2021 at 10:51:36AM +0530, Amar via tarsnap-users wrote:
> I thought it’d be straightforward but I am stuck. I am sure I am doing something wrong I just don’t know what.
> 
> I have to return my work laptop today and that’s where I had setup Tarsnap-GUI and have been using.
> 
> I have saved the key file, I also have the tarsnap.db file. I of course have the tarsnap.com <http://tarsnap.com/> a/c password.
> I will have same sets of data on my new laptop as well (I have already migrated local/laptop data to new one).
> 
> I want to just start backing up to the same remote with deduplication (from previously backed up data from previous laptop and all that) and all that.
> 
> I had installed via “brew install tarsnap-gui” and it installed tarsnap 1.0.39_1 (I didn’t install tarsnap separately)
> 
> When I run setup wizard it tries to verify archive integrity just based on the key, without even asking for my password. So I guess that should be fine as my key was generated 
> with my email and a/c password. But can I just use it on new machine? There’s nothing there yet - not even my jobs, or config yet? 
> 
> So on 3rd step of setup wizard it’s perpetually stuck on “Verifying archive integrity”.
> The Config directory (from step 2) is empty which makes sense as I have not imported or added any jobs etc. Should I copy paste tarsnap.db from previous machine (in App Data Directory).
> 
> Is there something I am missing?