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

[Graham Percival <gperciva@tarsnap.com>]

Hi Amar,

Thanks for the info!

On minor warning: in point 2, you added a name for the new laptop.
Unfortunately version 1.02 of the gui is misleading: that field doesn't do
anything.  The "machine name" is only used when creating a new key; after you
have a keyfile, all archives made with that keyfile come under that name.

(That field has been removed in git master, and will only be present in the
setup wizard if somebody is creating a new key.)

Cheers,
- Graham

On Sun, Apr 11, 2021 at 09:28:24AM +0530, Amar wrote:
> Hey all,
> 
> I was able to do that.
> 
> I decided to go the basic route as my data set isn’t huge and I had also lost tarsnap.db by then (I copied it and then must have “misplaced" it - it was 4am!).
> 
> So what I did was that many of you suggested exactly:
> 
> 1. Launched setup wizard, skipped it. 
> 
> 2. Then set everything one by one in each section of “Settings" tab: 
> 	Account:  Added my Tarsnap a/c email, added a name for the new laptop, and pointed to where I have put my old key (I keep it in Cryptomator Dropbox folder)
> 	Backup: This was pretty much filled up already just checked to ignore OS garbage
> 	Application: set client directory (/usr/local/bin - this is where brew puts tarsnap on Mac), cache directory (I changed it to .cache/tarsnap as I was going to recreate it anyway), left Download as it was, set App data dir as ~/.config/tarsnap.
> 
> 3. In applications tab clicked "Repair cache”. It took some time but all was good in the end. Added cache, checked all the archives and ended successfully.
> 
> 4. Went to “Jobs” tab and added the missing Job (I guess if I had preserved tarsnap.db it would have been populated automatically). Anyway I took this opportunity to combine two of my previous jobs into one. I save the same set of data via other methods as well so I knew what to select for backup. This time I selected ~/.config/tarsnap/tarsnap.db as well (maybe I will add cache files “directory” and “cache” as well later or in some other backup). (I will also consider pruning old archives - in a way all the files ever backed are preserved i.e. out of e.g. 200 archives if I can have last 7 + min number of archives post that that has all my data ever backed up)
> 
> 5. Then enabled scheduling. Moved the generated .plist file to a folder in Dropbox where I keep all my launch agents and then symlinked it. I also changed the time of it (I guess later I will change it to run multiple times a day). It'd be a nice tarsnap-gui feature though.
> 
> 6. Hit backup and it was done. 170kB new data was added. 
> 
> Thank you all :)
> 
> > On 10-Apr-2021, at 11:04 PM, Graham Percival <gperciva@tarsnap.com> wrote:
> > 
> > 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?
>