snapshot-restore

The Circe utility snapshot-restore is useful in situations where a user accidentally deletes an important file, and would like to restore the file from our backup infrastructure. The best way to understand how to use it is by example:

Suppose the user aastaneh is working on a class project due tomorrow, and accidentally deletes the file ~aastaneh/allmightyscript.pl, which is the project source code:

[aastaneh@login0 ~]$ rm allmightyscript.pl

Instead of panicking, he merely executes snapshot-restore:

[aastaneh@login0 ~]$ snapshot-restore
Welcome to the Circe Backup Restoration Utility!
Here are the available snapshots:
(1) 2008-10-30
(2) 2008-11-01
(3) 2008-11-02
(4) 2008-11-03
(5) 2008-11-04
Please choose a snapshot date you wish to restore from:

The user is given a list of snapshots sorted by date to choose from. He chooses option 5, since it is the most recent:

Please choose a snapshot date you wish to restore from:
5
Chose date 20081104030000..

Now in File Restore Environment
Restricted Command Set: cd <dir>, exit, ls, restore <file/dir>
backupsh aastaneh>

Now the user is placed in a rudimentary command shell environment, able to change directories(cd <dir>), do a directory listing(ls), and restore a file or directory (restore <file/dir>). He first does an ls to look for the lost allmightyscript.pl:

Restricted Command Set: cd <dir>, exit, ls, restore <file/dir>
backupsh aastaneh> ls
.
..
.bash_history
.bash_logout
.bash_profile
allmightyscript.pl
stuff
backupsh aastaneh>

He sees that the script exists, and restores it:

backupsh aastaneh> restore allmightyscript.pl
Restoring file allmightyscript.pl to /home/student/aastaneh/allmightyscript.pl-20081104030000
sending incremental file list
allmightyscript.pl
       11342 100%    0.00kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#1, to-check=0/1)

sent 11447 bytes  received 31 bytes  22956.00 bytes/sec
total size is 11342  speedup is 0.99

He exits, and finds the file in his home directory, appended with the snapshot date in the filename:

backupsh aastaneh> exit
[aastaneh@login0 ~]$ ls allmightyscript.pl*
allmightyscript.pl-20081104030000
[aastaneh@login0 ~]$

The user now has a copy of the lost file from the date it was backed up.