Re: [BackupPC-users] Restore backuppc installation (localhost) from existing backuppc backups

[Adam P. <pr...@lo...>]

After installing the backuppc software (or at least copy of 
BackupPC_tarExtract) you should be able to do

BackupPC_tarExtract -host <hostname> -num <backup_number> -path 
/path/to/file > extracted_file

Extracting files from cpool is extremely painful - you have to find a full 
backup from "backups" file for your host, then hash in pc/ directory, then 
find the hash in cpool, then extracting the zlib compressed file (with 
like pigz)... and maybe you can get something useful. For backuppc 4+ this 
is even worse...


On Mon, 4 May 2026, bac...@su... wrote:

>
> The host running backuppc on my network had its root drive fail.
>
> The actual backup storage was on an external drive which I had mounted on /var/lib/backuppc
>
> That external drive is still healthy.  I remember spending a lot of time getting backuppc to work just right and dread starting over.  Since the external drive includes the backup for localhost (the former box running backuppc), it should include a backup for /etc/backuppc and the config.pl file (I forget which directories I set for backup for localhost; hopefully I included /etc).
>
> It seems there should be a way I can extract my now-lost /etc/backuppc/config.pl and other files in that directory.  I am hoping I can install backuppc fresh, then grab the /etc/backuppc files from the external drive, and swap them in.  Is this possible?
>
> The names on the files on the external drive are all user-unfriendly.
>