From e6605c868d76c0342b9e34475f916368fa3b9ef5 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Dan Helfman Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2023 10:09:36 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] Clarify check frequency default behavior (#653). --- docs/how-to/deal-with-very-large-backups.md | 18 ++++++++++++------ 1 file changed, 12 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-) diff --git a/docs/how-to/deal-with-very-large-backups.md b/docs/how-to/deal-with-very-large-backups.md index c02f718c..e5962c1e 100644 --- a/docs/how-to/deal-with-very-large-backups.md +++ b/docs/how-to/deal-with-very-large-backups.md @@ -57,8 +57,8 @@ cron job). Another option is to customize your consistency checks. By default, if you omit consistency checks from configuration, borgmatic runs full-repository checks (`repository`) and per-archive checks (`archives`) within each -repository, no more than once a month. This is equivalent to what `borg check` -does if run without options. +repository. (Although see below about check frequency.) This is equivalent to +what `borg check` does if run without options. But if you find that archive checks are too slow, for example, you can configure borgmatic to run repository checks only. Configure this in the @@ -70,8 +70,9 @@ consistency: - name: repository ``` -Prior to version 1.6.2 `checks` -was a plain list of strings without the `name:` part. For example: +Prior to version 1.6.2 The +`checks` option was a plain list of strings without the `name:` part, and +borgmatic ran each configured check every time checks were run. For example: ```yaml consistency: @@ -112,8 +113,13 @@ consistency: This tells borgmatic to run the `repository` consistency check at most once every two weeks for a given repository and the `archives` check at most once a month. The `frequency` value is a number followed by a unit of time, e.g. "3 -days", "1 week", "2 months", etc. The `frequency` defaults to `always`, which -means run this check every time checks run. +days", "1 week", "2 months", etc. + +The `frequency` defaults to `always` for a check configured without a +`frequency`, which means run this check every time checks run. But if you omit +consistency checks from configuration entirely, borgmatic runs full-repository +checks (`repository`) and per-archive checks (`archives`) within each +repository, at most once a month. Unlike a real scheduler like cron, borgmatic only makes a best effort to run checks on the configured frequency. It compares that frequency with how long