RFE: Pre- and post-backup hooks

[Peter Gordon]

First of all, thank you for making proper backups so easy to have. I looked through the recent open bugs and mailing list posts and found nothing similar to this, so my apologies if this is a duplicate request.

One thing I think it would be a great idea for Deja Dup to feature is one or more configurable hooks for when backups are made, so that a user could run a script or command automatically immediately before a backup is started, and/or after a backup has just finished.

I'm not a UI expert by any means, so I'd appreciate even if this were only added as a so-called "power user" option through GSettings or similar.

For now, I can only think of a few possible use cases for pre- and post-backup hooks at the moment; but I'm sure there are others that I'm missing.

(1) In order to keep her system easily recoverable, Alice uses Deja Dup to backup her entire /home folder and various configuration files under /etc; but for ease of recovery, she wishes to use her distro's packaging scripts and automatically create a list of all installed packages and their versions to store with that backup.

(2) Bob has Deja Dup set to automatically backup to his remote system via SSH/SFTP; but the SSH server requires some port knocking-fu to properly establish a connection. Bob wants to configure Deja Dup so that his "open-the-door.sh" script runs before the backup is started to ensure it can be done successfully.

(3) Bob, from above, wants to close the port of his SSH connection by running his "close-the-door.sh" script after the backup is successfully completed.

(4) Charlie wants to set his desktop to backup to his Amazon S3 account overnight or while he is at work, since it will take several hourse via his ADSL connection. He wants to be able to add a hook so that after the backup is completed, the computer will power-off automatically (using "sudo shutdown -h now" or similar).

Thanks, and regards.
--Peter

[Arkaniad (arkaniad)]

This is a fantastic idea. I have a local NFS server that I would like to mount automatically before backing up, and if its unmountable (not at home) then don't let the automatic backup occur.

[Michael Terry (mterry)]

This isn't on the top of my priority list, but I'll leave it open to collect ideas. It's also possible that some of the more common use cases could be added as GUI options (like, maybe a 'power off when done' checkbox).

[KyleWhittington (kylewhittington)]

I also back this idea. I have a remote server that is only switched on when backups need to be run - currently just a WOL magic packet sent to wake it up, then it shuts down after it's run. I think adding a "Send WOL packet" checkbox (with a delay period that it should wait before trying the connection) and a "Power off when done" (as mentioned above) would be much appreciated and would fit the needs of many of the more advanced users.