zfs discuss - Nov 2010 - Replication Stream from a particular Snapshot

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Hi, my friends.

I keep a zpool with tons of snapshots. The live data is actually far
less than the used space, because the snapshots and a huge data turnaround.

I use ZFS replication streams ("sfz send -R") to replicate snapshots,
incrementally. Those streams are keep as files, just in case I have to
rebuild my zpool. Of course, this is my last backup defense. I have
snapshots and rsync too.

The point is...

If I ever have to use the streams to recover my pool, time will be
proportional to the number of streams dumped. Moreover, I know that I
could have problems because my zpool/zfs version number have been
changed from time to time.

I would like to be able, from time to time, to generate a replication
stream as a initial replication stream, full dump, with the next streams
as incrementals. I don''t care about previous snapshots, but I
don''t want
to delete them from the pool.

Example:

snapshot1, snapshot2, snapshot3, snapshot4, snapshot5...

First, I create a replication stream with snapshot1. Time later I have
snapshot2 and snapshot3. I do a new replication stream, this time
incremental. That replication stream will contains changes in snapshot2
and snapshot3.

Time later I have snapshot4 and snapshot5. I would like to create a NEW
replication stream, FULL, not incremental, with snapshot4 and snapshot5
ONLY. This way I could recover my pool only recovering this stream only,
not the previous ones.

Is there any way to do it?.

I know the "usual" approach would be just the oposite: keep the
snapshots in the destination system, but delete them from the original.
i don''t want to do that, because my secondary site is not ZFS, so I
must
keep the replication streams as files, and I can''t access the data
directly, without rebuilding the zpool first. So I like to have the
snapshots around in the primary.

- -- 
Jesus Cea Avion                         _/_/      _/_/_/        _/_/_/
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"Things are not so easy"      _/_/  _/_/    _/_/  _/_/    _/_/  _/_/
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