Obnam 1.2 introduces diff command for backups

Developer Lars Wirzenius has released Obnam 1.2, the latest version of his open source snapshotting backup utility. The new version includes a diff command and several improvements to its existing options, as well as a collection of bug fixes. Obnam, which has been in development since 2006 and graduated to version 1.0 in June, creates generational backup copies that remove the need for the user to care whether they should create an incremental or a full backup. Obnam's copies share as much data as possible and only changed data is backed up in subsequent runs.

In Obnam 1.2, users can now invoke a diff command which shows files that have been added, removed or modified between two backups. The documentation for the tool has also been amended to explain that Obnam only accepts directories and not individual files to work with. However, this is likely to change in the future, according to Wirzenius. To simplify the use of Obnam in scripts, output from the show plugin can be redirected to a file. Several bugs have also been fixed; the program now informs users if errors occur during the backup process.

Source code and Debian packages for Obnam 1.2 are provided on the developer's web site, along with links to an Ubuntu PPA and to the version control system for the project. However, due to Debian's current feature freeze the new packages have not been included in the official repositories at this time. The software is licensed under the GPLv3 or later.

(fab)