NAME¶
bup-midx - create a multi-index (.midx) file from several .idx files
SYNOPSIS¶
bup midx [-o
outfile] <-a|-f|
idxnames...>
DESCRIPTION¶
bup midx creates a multi-index (.midx) file from one or more git pack index
(.idx) files.
Note: you should no longer need to run this command by hand. It gets run
automatically by
bup-save(1) and similar commands.
OPTIONS¶
- -o, --output=filename.midx
- use the given output filename for the .midx file. Default
is auto-generated.
- -a, --auto
- automatically generate new .midx files for any .idx files
where it would be appropriate.
- -f, --force
- force generation of a single new .midx file containing
all your .idx files, even if other .midx files already exist. This
will result in the fastest backup performance, but may take a long time to
run.
- --dir=packdir
- specify the directory containing the .idx/.midx files to
work with. The default is $BUP_DIR/objects/pack and
$BUP_DIR/indexcache/*.
- --max-files
- maximum number of .idx files to open at a time. You can use
this if you have an especially small number of file descriptors available,
so that midx can complete (though possibly non-optimally) even if it can't
open all your .idx files at once. The default value of this option should
be fine for most people.
- --check
- validate a .midx file by ensuring that all objects in its
contained .idx files exist inside the .midx. May be useful for
debugging.
EXAMPLE¶
-
$ bup midx -a
Merging 21 indexes (2278559 objects).
Table size: 524288 (17 bits)
Reading indexes: 100.00% (2278559/2278559), done.
midx-b66d7c9afc4396187218f2936a87b865cf342672.midx
DISCUSSION¶
By default, bup uses git-formatted pack files, which consist of a pack file
(containing objects) and an idx file (containing a sorted list of object names
and their offsets in the .pack file).
Normal idx files are convenient because it means you can use
git(1) to access
your backup datasets. However, idx files can get slow when you have a lot of
very large packs (which git typically doesn't have, but bup often does).
bup .midx files consist of a single sorted list of all the objects contained in
all the .pack files it references. This list can be binary searched in about
log2(m) steps, where m is the total number of objects.
To further speed up the search, midx files also have a variable-sized fanout
table that reduces the first n steps of the binary search. With the help of
this fanout table, bup can narrow down which page of the midx file a given
object id would be in (if it exists) with a single lookup. Thus, typical
searches will only need to swap in two pages: one for the fanout table, and
one for the object id.
midx files are most useful when creating new backups, since searching for a
nonexistent object in the repository necessarily requires searching through
all the index files to ensure that it does not exist. (Searching for
objects that
do exist can be optimized; for example, consecutive
objects are often stored in the same pack, so we can search that one first
using an MRU algorithm.)
SEE ALSO¶
bup-save(1),
bup-margin(1),
bup-memtest(1)
BUP¶
Part of the
bup(1) suite.
AUTHORS¶
Avery Pennarun <apenwarr@gmail.com>.