Feature Request - Can we TAG our backups?

[Komport]

Is it possible to add optional feature to TAG our backups. Say if I have 10 inc backups, each taken after some specific action, so It will be very handy if i can add tag to each of them or some of them (critical ones).
Like below

[root@server1 MySQL-AutoXtraBackup]# autoxtrabackup --backup --TAG "Before Testdb - test table - test column drop"

[ShahriyarR]

Hi, it is possible of course.
But how this tag will be stored?

[Komport]

For example you can keep as txt file in each backupdir.

[ShahriyarR]

Or we can keep 1 file inside backup_dir named as backup_tags.txt and append there each time we are doing the backup.

[ShahriyarR]

So I am going to implement this in with following steps:

• The new --tag option can be added to add new entries for each backup.
• --show_tags options can be added to show those tags.
• --show_tags must be used only with --defaults_file to get the backup_dir path and other things from config.
• --show_tags should raise an exception if backup_tags.txt missing from backup_dir.

Please feel free to add some more things here.

[Komport]

With one file it will be more job to do i think. What I feel is to place in each folder txt file with its tag. And it should be optional. Users do not like exceptions in tools, especially DB admins, especially in backup and restore tools :)

[ShahriyarR]

:) Well, thats means you have not used --tag option before and now you want to show tags?

Let's describe a situation where you have 1 full + 12 incremental backups:

• For storing tags in each folder we need 13 backup_tags.txt + each time for showing tags we should recursively go through all backup folders open those files, reading appending to empty list then show in the output.
• Another thing if somebody just wants to send this backup_tags.txt to somewhere? or for statistics? or just showing to boss? He needs to open those 13 files manually combine them or running --show_tags and redirecting the output to another file, which is more tedious.

Does it make sense now?

[Komport]

You knows better muallim ;)

[ShahriyarR]

@Komport
I have added the status column as well.
The result of PyTest run(not from cli):

$ cat backup_tags.txt
2017-11-07_16-17-58     Full    'My first full backup'  OK
2017-11-07_16-27-26     Inc     'My first inc backup'   OK
2017-11-07_16-28-37     Inc     'My second inc backup'  OK

[ShahriyarR]

From autoxtrabackup tool:

$ autoxtrabackup -v -lf /home/shahriyar.rzaev/autoxtrabackup2.log -l DEBUG --defaults_file=/home/shahriyar.rzaev/XB_TEST/server_dir/xb_2_3_ps_5_6.conf --backup --tag="This the full backup"

The result:

[shahriyar.rzaev@qaserver-02 ps_5_6_x_2_3]$ cat backup_tags.txt 
2017-11-07_16-42-42     Full    'This the full backup'  OK

Also debug message was added:

171107 16:44:23 completed OK!
2017-11-07 16:44:23 DEBUG    Adding backup tags

Second run for incremental backups:

$ autoxtrabackup -v -lf /home/shahriyar.rzaev/autoxtrabackup2.log -l DEBUG --defaults_file=/home/shahriyar.rzaev/XB_TEST/server_dir/xb_2_3_ps_5_6.conf --backup --tag="This the INC backup"

The result:

$ cat backup_tags.txt 
2017-11-07_16-42-42     Full    'This the full backup'  OK
2017-11-07_16-44-15     Inc     'This the INC backup'   OK

[ShahriyarR]

@Komport
Also I have decided not to put column names into backup_tags.txt file.
Instead of this I will print it with --show_tags option.

What do you think about this?

[ShahriyarR]

Changed the output a bit:

$ cat backup_tags.txt
2017-11-07_16-57-38     Full    OK      'This the Full backup'
2017-11-07_16-58-08     Inc     OK      'This INC backup'