Terminology

Locations

  • Archive
    The bundle of settings, metadata, logs and the actual backed up files. The archive has a type, see below
  • Source
    The local filesystem to be backed up. Paths on the source are always relative to the root (/) of the local filesystem.
  • Destination Path
    The full path to the destination as seen by rsync. For Paths and Drives this will be a local path (e.g. /media/mydrive/mylocalpath/to/archive)
  • Relative Path
    The Relative Path is a reference to where the archive is located within the root of the given Archive Type. For example, this might be backups/MyComputer where the full path to the archive would be /media/usbdrive/backups/MyComputer

Archive Specifics

  • Archive Type
    The type of medium that the Archive is stored on. Currently might be one of Path, Drive,or Remote.
  • Snapshot
    A look at the Source filesystem at some point in time. Archives can contain multiple snapshots, and one can be removed without affecting others.
  • Include
    A specific path (relative to /) to back up. Includes subdirectories and takes precedence over an Exclude
  • Exclude
    A specific path (relative to /) that should not be backed up. Includes subdirectories.

Type-Specific Terminology

Path

A Path is a simple local path to back up to. This might be useful if that location is then backed up offsite using a separate and additional backup program. It is also useful if TimeVault does not recognize the drive or if the path is a mounted filesystem (i.e. sshfs, samba mount, nfs mount, etc…)

Drive

A Drive is a physical hard drive/usb drive that contains an Archive. It was the original concept type of TimeVault and is considered the most supported. Backups will be made to this drive when it is present regardless of if its path changes from time to time. A Drive can contain Archives from multiple computers, referenced by their hostnames.
– UUID
The UUID of the drive allows it to be uniquely identifiable and allows TimeVault to track it across mounts.

Remote

Remote references a remote filesystem that is native to rsync (i.e. over ssh). It otherwise acts similarly to a Path