NAME

       bup-prune-older - remove older saves (CAUTION: EXPERIMENTAL)

SYNOPSIS

       bup prune-older [options...] <branch...>

DESCRIPTION

       bup prune-older  removes  (permanently  deletes)  all  saves except those preserved by the
       various keep arguments detailed below.  At least one  keep  argument  must  be  specified.
       This command is equivalent to a suitable bup rm invocation followed by bup gc.

       WARNING:  This  is one of the few bup commands that modifies your archive in intentionally
       destructive ways.  Though if an attempt to join or restore the data you still  care  about
       after  a  prune-older  succeeds, that's a fairly encouraging sign that the commands worked
       correctly.  (The t/compare-trees command in the source tree  can  be  used  to  help  test
       before/after results.)

KEEP PERIODS

       A  --keep PERIOD (as required below) must be an integer followed by a scale, or "forever".
       For example, 12y specifies a PERIOD of twelve years.  Here are the valid scales:

       • s indicates seconds

       • min indicates minutes (60s)

       • h indicates hours (60m)

       • d indicates days (24h)

       • w indicates weeks (7d)

       • m indicates months (31d)

       • y indicates years (366d)

       • forever is infinitely far in the past

       As indicated, the PERIODS are computed with respect to the  current  time,  or  the  --wrt
       value  if  specified,  and  do  not respect any calendar, so --keep-dailies-for 5d means a
       period starting exactly 5 * 24 * 60 * 60 seconds before the starting point.

OPTIONS

       --keep-all-for PERIOD
              when no smaller time scale --keep option applies, retain all saves within the given
              period.

       --keep-dailies-for PERIOD
              when  no  smaller  time scale --keep option applies, retain the oldest save for any
              day within the given period.

       --keep-monthlies-for PERIOD
              when no smaller time scale --keep option applies, retain the oldest  save  for  any
              month within the given period.

       --keep-yearlies-for PERIOD
              when  no  smaller  time scale --keep option applies, retain the oldest save for any
              year within the given period.

       --wrt UTC_SECONDS
              when computing  a  keep  period,  place  the  most  recent  end  of  the  range  at
              UTC_SECONDS, and any saves newer than this will be kept.

       --pretend
              don't  do  anything,  just list the actions that would be taken to standard output,
              one action per line like this:

                     - SAVE
                     + SAVE
                     ...

       --gc   garbage collect the repository after removing the  relevant  saves.   This  is  the
              default behavior, but it can be avoided with --no-gc.

       --gc-threshold N
              only  rewrite  a packfile if it's over N percent garbage; otherwise leave it alone.
              The default threshold is 10%.

       -#, --compress #
              set the compression level when rewriting archive data to # (a value from 0-9, where
              9  is  the  highest  and  0  is  no  compression).   The  default is 1 (fast, loose
              compression).

       -v, --verbose
              increase verbosity (can be specified more than once).

NOTES

       When --verbose is specified, the save periods will be summarized to  standard  error  with
       lines like this:

              keeping monthlies since 1969-07-20-201800
              keeping all yearlies
              ...

       It's possible that the current implementation might not be able to format the date if, for
       example, it is far enough back in time.  In that case, you will see something like this:

              keeping yearlies since -30109891477 seconds before 1969-12-31-180000
              ...

EXAMPLES

              # Keep all saves for the past month, and any older monthlies for
              # the past year.  Delete everything else.
              $ bup prune-older --keep-all-for 1m --keep-monthlies-for 1y

              # Keep all saves for the past 6 months and delete everything else,
              # but only on the semester branch.
              $ bup prune-older --keep-all-for 6m semester

SEE ALSO

       bup-rm(1), bup-gc(1), and bup-fsck(1)

BUP

       Part of the bup(1) suite.

AUTHORS

       Rob Browning <rlb@defaultvalue.org>.