Ubuntu – Duplicity/Deja-dup – full backup frequency

The old method of restoring via right-click in Nautilus should work. The only time that option is not available in the context menu is when you are in a folder that is not included in the current backup settings. On your fresh install, make sure you have configured the backup exactly like on the old install.

A little technical background: Nautilus doesn't check what backups currently exist on the system. In fact, doing so would take a long time and cannot be done everytime you right-click on a folder. It only checks which folders are scheduled for backup and shows the option whenever you are in such a folder.

(Also, it seems like it doesn't check for exclusion filters – even in excluded folders, the restore option is available if the parent folder is included. Deja-dup won't restore anything though if you actually click it.)

If you still don't succeed on your machine for whatever reason, you can use this method instead:

deja-dup --restore [File1 File2 ...]

will restore individual files if you know their names.

deja-dup --restore-missing [Directory]

will restore the files that have been deleted from the given directory.

Note that both of these commands will bring up the Deja-Dup Restore GUI, which will also allow you to specify the backup source. You don't need to do the whole task on the command line.

Found it, Deja Dup overwrites the default duplicity chunk size. The source code explains the advantages and disadvantages:

  // Returns volume size in megs
  int get_volsize()
  {
    // Advantages of a smaller value:
    // * takes less temp space
    // * retries of a volume take less time
    // * quicker restore of a particular file (less excess baggage to download)
    // * we get feedback more frequently (duplicity only gives us a progress
    //   report at the end of a volume) -- fixed by reporting when we're uploading
    // Downsides:
    // * less throughput:
    //   * some protocols have large per-file overhead (like sftp)
    //   * the network doesn't have time to ramp up to max tcp transfer speed per
    //     file
    // * lots of files looks ugly to users
    //
    // duplicity's default is 25 (used to be 5).
    //
    // For local filesystems, we'll choose large volsize.
    // For remote FSs, we'll go smaller.
    if (DejaDup.in_testing_mode())
      return 1;
    else if (backend.is_native())
      return 50;
    else
      return 25;
  }

I managed to compile a custom version of deja-dup. Therefore, I had to do the following steps:

1. Clone source code

   git clone https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/deja-dup.git
   cd ./deja-dup
   

2. Switch to older branch with gtk3 support for Ubuntu 20.04

   git checkout --track origin/40
   

3. Patch the return of the get_volsize() funktion in DuplicityJob.vala and increase the version number. Eg.

   git apply patch40-7-1.diff
   

   patch40-7-1.diff:

   diff --git a/libdeja/tools/duplicity/DuplicityJob.vala b/libdeja/tools/duplicity/DuplicityJob.vala
   index a229e8b0..bb6f77fe 100644
   --- a/libdeja/tools/duplicity/DuplicityJob.vala
   +++ b/libdeja/tools/duplicity/DuplicityJob.vala
   @@ -1399,9 +1399,9 @@ internal class DuplicityJob : DejaDup.ToolJob
        if (DejaDup.in_testing_mode())
          return 1;
        else if (backend.is_native())
   -      return 50;
   +      return 500;
        else
   -      return 25;
   +      return 250;
      }
   
      void disconnect_inst()
   diff --git a/meson.build b/meson.build
   index 266d7a36..fed8434d 100644
   --- a/meson.build
   +++ b/meson.build
   @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
    # SPDX-FileCopyrightText: Michael Terry
   
    project('deja-dup', ['vala', 'c'],
   -    version: '40.7',
   +    version: '40.7.1',
        license: 'GPL-3.0-or-later',
        meson_version: '>= 0.47'
   

4. Make and install (including installing missing packages):

   meson . _build
   ninja -C _build
   ninja -C _build install
   

Voilà