Ubuntu – Extract duplicity files manually

backupduplicitygziprestore

I lost the drive, and the Ubuntu OS installed in it, from which I created a backup using Duplicity, and I don't know how to restore the archived files I still keep in another drive. They all follow these 4 notations

duplicity-full.20140106T111233Z.manifest
duplicity-full-signatures.20140106T111233Z.sigtar.gz
duplicity-full.20140106T111233Z.volxxx.difftar.gz (multiple volumes)
duplicity-full.20140106T111233Z.volxxx.difftar (multiple volumes)

There's important data I need to recover. Is there anything I can do? Would be enough to use gzip? And if so, how could I extract them all easily?

EDIT 1 Trying your suggestions, both with the restore and the –gio options, I get this text:

duplicity restore file://media/ubuntu/Toshiba\ HDD/BACKUPS/Documents/ /media/ubuntu/9fb63c8e-ecb5-4c55-b4e0-282e7b4a82ff/tmp/docs/
Local and Remote metadata are synchronized, no sync needed.
Last full backup date: none
GnuPG passphrase: 
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/duplicity", line 1494, in <module>
    with_tempdir(main)
  File "/usr/bin/duplicity", line 1488, in with_tempdir
    fn()
  File "/usr/bin/duplicity", line 1337, in main
    do_backup(action)
  File "/usr/bin/duplicity", line 1422, in do_backup
    restore(col_stats)
  File "/usr/bin/duplicity", line 697, in restore
    restore_get_patched_rop_iter(col_stats)):
  File "/usr/bin/duplicity", line 719, in restore_get_patched_rop_iter
    backup_chain = col_stats.get_backup_chain_at_time(time)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/duplicity/collections.py", line 952, in get_backup_chain_at_time
    raise CollectionsError("No backup chains found")
CollectionsError: No backup chains found

/media/ubuntu/Toshiba\ HDD/BACKUPS/Documents/ is where all the duplicity files are, and /media/ubuntu/9fb63c8e-ecb5-4c55-b4e0-282e7b4a82ff/tmp/docs/ a temporary destination folder I want to restore the files to.

EDIT 2 Corrected the missing slash in file://media…. Now I get restored files, but not exactly what I expected. There are a lot of files missing (up to 24 GB in there!)

root@ubuntu:/media/ubuntu/Toshiba HDD/BACKUPS/Documents# ls -la /tmp/docs/home/luis/
total 4176
drwx------ 16 root root    1000 Jun 30 19:13 .
drwx------  3 root root      60 Jun 30 19:13 ..
drwx------  3 1000 1000      60 Oct 23  2013 .activestate
drwxr-xr-x  2 1000 1000      60 Oct 23  2013 .ActiveState
drwx------  3 1000 1000      60 Dec 28  2012 .adobe
-rw-------  1 1000 1000   32120 Jan  4 12:56 .bash_history
-rw-r--r--  1 1000 1000     220 Dec 28  2012 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r--  1 1000 1000    3637 Dec 28  2012 .bashrc
drwx------  3 1000 1000      60 Jan  3 14:01 .cache
drwxr-xr-x  3 1000 1000      60 Nov 16  2013 .cddb
-rw-rw-r--  1 1000 1000     740 Jan 10  2013 .cola
drwx------  3 1000 1000      60 Dec 29  2012 .compiz
drwxrwxr-x  3 1000 1000      80 Oct  1  2013 .composer
drwx------ 46 1000 1000    1020 Dec  8  2013 .config
drwx------  3 1000 1000      60 Dec 28  2012 .dbus
-rw-r--r--  1 1000 1000      25 Jul 13  2013 .dmrc
drwx------  3 1000 1000     380 Jan  6 10:31 .dropbox
drwxr-xr-x  6 1000 1000    1660 Dec 17  2013 .dropbox-dist
drwx------  3 root root      60 Jun 30 19:13 .eclipse
-rw-------  1 1000 1000   50282 Jan  6 10:29 .ICEauthority
drwxrwxr-x 14 1000 1000     340 Dec  7  2013 .PlayOnLinux
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 2077491 Nov 23  2013 .Soulseek.1385165090491
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 2076644 Nov 23  2013 .Soulseek.1385166430938
-rw-r--r--  1 1000 1000    9986 Dec 30 20:02 .Soulseek.1388433748295
drwxrwxr-x  2 1000 1000      60 Oct 13  2013 .SyncWall
-rw-------  1 1000 1000     109 Jan  6 10:29 .Xauthority
-rw-rw-r--  1 1000 1000       0 Jul 29  2013 .Xauthority.25Y20W
-rw-rw-r--  1 1000 1000       0 Jul 13  2013 .Xauthority.7K14ZW
-rw-rw-r--  1 1000 1000       0 Jul  7  2013 .Xauthority.7K7SZW
-rw-rw-r--  1 1000 1000       0 Jul 13  2013 .Xauthority.9X1E0W
-rw-rw-r--  1 1000 1000       0 Sep  1  2013 .Xauthority.A3D52W
-rw-rw-r--  1 1000 1000       0 Sep  1  2013 .Xauthority.CEUV2W
-rw-rw-r--  1 1000 1000       0 Jul 27  2013 .Xauthority.CP7Q0W
-rw-rw-r--  1 1000 1000       0 Sep  8  2013 .Xauthority.E1ET2W
-rw-rw-r--  1 1000 1000       0 Aug 26  2013 .Xauthority.E32K2W
-rw-rw-r--  1 1000 1000       0 Sep 14  2013 .Xauthority.EKK92W
-rw-rw-r--  1 1000 1000       0 Jul 12  2013 .Xauthority.F4QRZW
-rw-rw-r--  1 1000 1000       0 Jul 25  2013 .Xauthority.ISVZ0W
-rw-rw-r--  1 1000 1000       0 Jul 11  2013 .Xauthority.JU3UZW
-rw-rw-r--  1 1000 1000       0 Aug 31  2013 .Xauthority.M30S2W
-rw-rw-r--  1 1000 1000       0 Aug  1  2013 .Xauthority.M3H20W
-rw-rw-r--  1 1000 1000       0 Sep  9  2013 .Xauthority.MKIN2W
-rw-rw-r--  1 1000 1000       0 Aug 28  2013 .Xauthority.RWHB2W
-rw-rw-r--  1 1000 1000       0 Jul 15  2013 .Xauthority.SN85ZW
-rw-rw-r--  1 1000 1000       0 Sep 15  2013 .Xauthority.T22C3W
-rw-rw-r--  1 1000 1000       0 Jul 14  2013 .Xauthority.T6CB0W
-rw-rw-r--  1 1000 1000       0 Jul 31  2013 .Xauthority.VF7Q0W
-rw-rw-r--  1 1000 1000       0 Sep  9  2013 .Xauthority.WGEX2W
-rw-rw-r--  1 1000 1000       0 Aug 31  2013 .Xauthority.WZR52W
-rw-rw-r--  1 1000 1000       0 Jul 25  2013 .Xauthority.YQIR0W

Most strange is, besides all the files starting with a dot, that I can't browse the home/luis directories with Nautilus, which in fact were where all my backed up data was.

Best Answer

  1. Use duplicity to extract it:

    duplicity restore file:///path_to_folder_contains_backups/ path_where_to_extract_it/

  2. Enter GnuPG passphrase, Press Enter

By default, Duplicity restores last backup (comparing time) in the source folder even its not the backup for the same folder. If you have multiple backups for different folders or you want specific time of same folder, use --time option example:

duplicity restore --time 20140106T111233Z file:///path_to_folder_contains_backups/ path_where_to_extract_it/

Unable to see the files you are looking for, try:

  1. Create function that list all files contained in all full/inc backups available in the source folder:

    ldup () {
    for f in $(ls $1/duplicity-*.manifest.gpg); do
        echo "========================================================================"; 
        echo $f;
        n=$(basename $f .manifest.gpg);
        prefix=$(echo $n | awk 'BEGIN { FS = "." } ;{ print $1 }');
        if [[ "$prefix" == "duplicity-full" ]]; then
            t=$(echo $n | awk 'BEGIN { FS = "." } ;{ print $2 }');
        else
            t=$(echo $n | awk 'BEGIN { FS = "." } ;{ print $4 }');
        fi;
        echo -e "Creation time:\t" $t;
        echo "------------------------------------------------------------------------";
        duplicity list-current-files --time $t file://$1/ | grep "$2";
    done;
}

  2. To list all files (note without tail /):

    ldup /path_to_folder_contains_backups

  3. search for a pattern in file names:

    ldup /path_to_folder_contains_backups pattern

Reference: man duplicity

Related Question