Ubuntu – Extract unencrypted duplicity backup when all sigtar and most manifest files are missing

backupdeja-dupduplicityrestore

I am trying to extract a backup from an old duplicity back up (done by the ubuntu gui, I believe it was deja-dup).

I copied all I could off a dying hard drive. I have

  • a lot of difftar.gz files – some 2014 and some 2016.
  • a single .manifest file from 2014.
  • no sigtar.gz files

The backups are not encrypted – I have unzipped one difftar.gz file and examined it in a hex editor and I can see lots of plain text.

Running some commands:

% duplicity --no-encryption --ignore-errors collection-status file:///home/hamish/poonbackup2014
Running in 'ignore errors' mode due to --ignore-errors; please re-consider if this was not intended
Last full backup date: Mon Sep 15 19:37:44 2014
Collection Status
-----------------
Connecting with backend: BackendWrapper
Archive directory: /home/hamish/.cache/duplicity/c34b5c3ae7d763a715fd062ec5f49baa

Found 1 secondary backup chain.
Secondary chain 1 of 1:
-------------------------
Chain start time: Mon Sep 15 19:37:44 2014
Chain end time: Mon Sep 15 19:37:44 2014
Number of contained backup sets: 1
Total number of contained volumes: 2063
 Type of backup set:                            Time:   Number of volumes:
                Full         Mon Sep 15 19:37:44 2014              2063
-------------------------

No backup chains with active signatures found
No orphaned or incomplete backup sets found.



% duplicity --no-encryption --ignore-errors collection-status file:///home/hamish/poonbackup2016
Running in 'ignore errors' mode due to --ignore-errors; please re-consider if this was not intended
Warning, found incomplete backup sets, probably left from aborted session
Last full backup date: none
Collection Status
-----------------
Connecting with backend: BackendWrapper
Archive directory: /home/hamish/.cache/duplicity/37e66337a462669832db8b2b852f9c6f

Found 0 secondary backup chains.
No backup chains with active signatures found
Also found 0 backup sets not part of any chain,
and 2 incomplete backup sets.
These may be deleted by running duplicity with the "cleanup" command.


% duplicity --no-encryption --ignore-errors list-current-files file:///home/hamish/poonbackup2014
Running in 'ignore errors' mode due to --ignore-errors; please re-consider if this was not intended
Synchronising remote metadata to local cache...
Deleting local /home/hamish/.cache/duplicity/f152114ed2326b0ba48e42e6ec0a23d6/duplicity-full.20140915T183744Z.manifest (not authoritative at backend).
Last full backup date: none
Traceback (innermost last):
  File "/usr/bin/duplicity", line 1555, in <module>
    with_tempdir(main)
  File "/usr/bin/duplicity", line 1541, in with_tempdir
    fn()
  File "/usr/bin/duplicity", line 1393, in main
    do_backup(action)
  File "/usr/bin/duplicity", line 1476, in do_backup
    list_current(col_stats)
  File "/usr/bin/duplicity", line 702, in list_current
    sig_chain = col_stats.get_signature_chain_at_time(time)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/duplicity/collections.py", line 998, in get_signature_chain_at_time
    raise CollectionsError("No signature chains found")
 CollectionsError: No signature chains found

Assuming I cannot extract any more files from the original hard drive, do I have any options to extract files?

I am most interested in extracting photos – if I could extract a file of photos with no names or file metadata that would be a win at this point.

Best Answer

collection status finds a chain in file:///home/hamish/poonbackup2014 . so theoretically you should be able to restore the whole backup. signatures are only needed to restore single files/folders or list the contents.

..ede/duply.net

Related Question