bup-gc(1) bup-gc(1)
NAME
bup-gc - remove unreferenced, unneeded data
SYNOPSIS
bup gc [-#|--verbose] <branch|save...>
DESCRIPTION
bup gc removes (permanently deletes) unreachable data from the reposi-
tory, data that isn’t referred to directly or indirectly by the current
set of branches (backup sets) and tags. But bear in mind that given
deduplication, deleting a save and running the garbage collector might
or might not actually delete anything (or reclaim any space).
With the current, proababilistic implementation, some fraction of the
unreachable data may be retained. In exchange, the garbage collection
should require less RAM than might be required by some more precise ap-
proaches.
Typically, the garbage collector would be invoked after some set of in-
vocations of bup rm.
WARNING: This is one of the few bup commands that modifies your archive
in intentionally destructive ways. Though if an attempt to join or re-
store the data you still care about after a gc succeeds, that’s a fairly
encouraging sign that the commands worked correctly. (The dev/com-
pare-trees command in the source tree can be used to help test be-
fore/after results.)
OPTIONS
--threshold=N
only rewrite a packfile if it’s over N percent garbage and con-
tains no unreachable trees or commits. The default threshold is
10%.
-v, --verbose
increase verbosity (can be used more than once). With one -v,
bup prints every directory name as it gets backed up. With two
-v, it also prints every filename.
-#, --compress=#
set the compression level to # (a value from 0-9, where 9 is the
highest and 0 is no compression). The default is 1 (fast, loose
compression).
--ignore-missing
report missing objects, but don’t stop the collection.
EXIT STATUS
The exit status will be nonzero if there were any errors. Encountering
any missing object is considered an error.
EXAMPLES
# Remove all saves of "home" and most of the otherwise unreferenced data.
$ bup rm home
$ bup gc
SEE ALSO
bup-rm(1) and bup-fsck(1)
BUP
Part of the bup(1) suite.
AUTHORS
Rob Browning ]8;;mailto:rlb@defaultvalue.org\rlb@defaultvalue.org]8;;\
Bup 0.33.7 2025-01-11 bup-gc(1)
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