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@@ -0,0 +1,420 @@ +# Release notes for Obnam2 + +This file summarizes changes between releases of the second generation +of Obnam, the backup software. The software is technically called +"obnam2" to distinguish it from the first generation of Obnam, which +ended in 2017 with version number 1.22. + + +# Version 0.8.0, released 2022-07-24 + +## Breaking changes + +Breaking changes are ones that mean existing backups can't be +restored, or new backups can't be created. + +* The list of backups is stored in a special "root chunk". This means + backups are explicitly ordered. This also paves way for a future + feature to backups: only the root chunk will need to be updated. + Without a root chunk, the backups formed a linked list, and deleting + from the middle of the list would updating the whole list. + +* The server chunk metadata field `sha256` is now called `label`. + Labels include a type prefix, to allow for other chunk checksum + types in the future. + +* The server API is now explicitly versioned, to allow future changes + to cause less breakage. + +## New features + +* Users can now choose the backup schema version for new backups. A + repository can have backups with different schemas, and any existing + backup can be restored. The schema version only applies to new + backups. + +* New command `obnam inspect` shows metadata about a backup. Currently + only the schema version is shown. + +* New command `obnam list-backup-versions` shows all the backup schema + versions that this version of Obnam supports. + +* Obnam now logs some basic performance measurement for each run: how + many live files were found in total, backed up, chunks uploaded, + existing chunks reused, and how long various parts of the process + took. + +## Other changes + +* The `obnam show-generation` command now outputs data in the JSON + format. The output now includes data about the generation's SQLite + database size. + +## Thank you + +Several people have helped with this release, with changes or +feedback. + +* Alexander Batischev +* Lars Wirzenius + +# Version 0.7.1, released 2022-03-08 + +## Bug fixes + +* Skipped files are not added to a new backup. + +## Other changes + +* Obnam is now much faster when backing up files that haven't changed. + +## Thank you + +Several people have helped with this release, with changes or +feedback. + +* Alexander Batischev +* Lars Wirzenius + + +# Version 0.7.0, released 2022-01-04 + +## Breaking changes + +* No known breaking changes in this release. + +## New or changed features + +* Command that retrieve and use backups from the server now verify + that the backup's schema is compatible with the running version of + Obnam. This means, for example, that `obnam restore` won't try to + restore a backup it doesn't know it can restore. + +## Internal changes + +* Update Subplot step bindings with types for captures to allow + Subplot to verify that embedded files in obnam.md are actually used. + +* Tidy up code in various ways. + +* The Obnam release process now has a step to run `cargo update` after + the crate's version number has been updated, so that the + `Cargo.lock` file gets updated. + +## Changes to documentation + +* The `obnam` crate now documents all exported symbols. This should + make the crate somewhat less hostile to use. + +* The minimum supported Rust version is whatever is going to be in the + next Debian stable release (code name bookworm). + +## Thank you + +Several people have helped with this release, with changes or +feedback. + +* Alexander Batischev +* Lars Wirzenius + +(Our apologies to anyone who's been forgotten.) + + + +# Version 0.6.0, released 2021-11-20 + +## Breaking changes + +* We no longer test Obnam with Debian 10 (buster) in our continuous + integration system. The current Debian stable release, Debian 11 + (bullseye), is tested. + +## New or changed features + +* It is now an error if the backup root directory doesn't exist or + can't be read. This applies only to the backup roots. Other files + and directories may go missing or be unreadable, and Obnam only + warns about that, to allow making backups of live systems where + files change during the backup. + +## Internal changes + +* There is now a new "many files" benchmark. + +## Changes to documentation + +* We've started a decision log for big, important project decisions. + +## Thank you + +Several people have helped with this release, with changes or +feedback. + +* Alexander Batischev +* Lars Wirzenius + +(Our apologies to anyone who's been forgotten.) + + +# Version 0.5.0, released 2021-11-20 + +## Experimental version + +This is an experimental release, and is not meant to be relied on for +recovery of important data. The purpose of this release is to get new +features into the hands of intrepid people who want to try out new +things. + +## Breaking changes + +* Obnam is now licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License, + version 3 or later. This mainly affects the Obnam chunk server, + which has a network API. + +* The Obnam client now stores the version of the database schema in + the per-backup SQLite database. This allows the client to recognize + when a backup was made with an incompatible version of the client. + This, in turn, paves way for us to safely making changes that older + versions of the client do not understand. + + As a result, the backups made with this version may silently break + older versions of the client. However, this should be the last time + such silent breakage happens. + +## New or changed features + +* Obnam now restore metadata of restored symlinks correctly. + +* Obnam's handling of `CACHEDIR.TAG` files is more secure against an + attacker adding such files in directories getting backed up. + +* Progress bars so bars for different phases of the backup do not + interfere with each other anymore. + +* The client now has the "obnam resolve" subcommand to resolve a + generation label (such as "latest") into a generation ID. The labels + may point at different commits over time, the IDs never change. + +* The client now has the "obnam chunkify" subcommand to compute + checksums of chunks of files. For now, this is for doing performance + benchmarks, but may eventually evolve into a way to experiment how + parameters affect sizes of chunks and the ability of the Obnam + client to find duplicate data. + +* A build problem on macOS, where `chmod` needs a different type of + integer, was fixed. + +## Internal changes + +* Obnam was migrated to using Docker in GitLab CI and using the new + Debian stable release (version 11, code name bullseye). + +* The Obnam client is now asynchronous code. This is a foundation for + making the client be faster in the future. This has temporarily made + the client slower in some cases. + +* There is now a simple policy on what is required for changes to be + merge, in the `DONE.md` file. + +* There have been updates to use newer versions of dependencies, + refactoring of code to be clearer and more tidy, as well as bug + fixes in the test suite. + +## Changes to documentation + +* The tutorial now explains the passphrases are ephemeral. + +## Thank you + +Several people have helped with this release, with changes or +feedback. + +* Alexander Batischev +* Daniel Silverstone +* Lars Wirzenius +* Ossi Herrala + +(Our apologies to anyone who's been forgotten.) + + +# Version 0.4.0, released 2021-06-06 + +## Experimental version + +This is an experimental release, and is not meant to be relied on for +recovery of important data. The purpose of this release is to get new +features into the hands of intrepid people who want to try out new +things. + +## Breaking changes + +This release introduces use of encryption in Subplot. Encryption is +not optional, and the new `obnam init` command must always be used +before the first backup to generate an encryption key. + +Starting with this version of Obnam, there is no support at all for +cleartext backups any more. A backup, or backup repository, made with +a previous version of Obnam **will not work** with this version: you +can't list backups in a repository, you can't restore a backup, and +you can't make a new backup. You need to start over from scratch, by +emptying the server's chunk directory. Eventually, Obnam will stop +having such breaking, throw-away-everything changes, but it will +take time to build that functionality. + +Note: this version add only a very rudimentary approach to encryption. +It is only meant to protect the backups from the server operator +snooping via the server file system. It doesn't protect against most +other threats, including the server operator replacing parts of +backups on the server. Future versions of Obnam will add more +protection. + +## New or changed features + +* Obnam now by default excludes directories that are marked with a + `CACHEDIR.TAG` file. Set `exclude_cache_tag_directories` to `false` + in the configuration file to disable the feature. See the [Cache + Directory Tagging Specification][] for details of the tag file. + +[Cache Directory Tagging Specification]: https://bford.info/cachedir/ + +* You can now use _tilde notation_ in the configuration file, in fields + for specifying backup root directories or the log file. This makes + it easier to files relative to the user's home directory: + + ~~~yaml + server_url: https://obnam-server + roots: + - ~/Maildirs + ~ ~/src/obnam + log: ~/log/obnam.log + ~~~ + +* Alexander Batischev changed the code that queries the SQL database + to return an iterator, instead of an array of result. This means + that if, for example, a backup generation has a very large number of + files, Obnam no longer needs to keep all of them in memory at once. + +* Various error messages are now clearer and more useful. For example, + if there is a problem reading a file, the name of the file is + included in the error message. + +## Internal changes + +* Alexander Batischev added support for GitLab CI, which means that + changes are tested automatically before they are merged. This will + make development a little smoother in the future. + + +## Changes to documentation + +* Tigran Zakoyan made a logo for Obnam. It is currently only used on + the [website](https://obnam.org/), but will find more use later. For + example, some stickers could be made. + +## Thank you + +Several people have helped with this release, with changes or +feedback. I want to especially mention the following, in order by +first name, with apologies to anyone I have inadvertently forgotten: +Alexander Batischev, Daniel Silverstone, Neal Walfield, Tigran +Zakoyan. + + +# Version 0.3.1, released 2021-03-23 + +This is a minor release to work around a bug in Subplot, which +prevented the 0.3.0 release to have a Debian package built. The +workaround is to rewrite a small table in the "Filenames" section as a +list. + + +# Version 0.3.0, released 2021-03-14 + +## Breaking changes + +* The format of the data stored on the backup repository has changed. + The new version can't restore old backups: old generations are now + useless. You'll have to start over. Sorry. + +## New or changed features + +* New `obnam config` sub-command writes out the actual configuration + that the program users, as read from the configuration file. + +* The client configuration now has default values for all + configuration fields that can reasonably have them. For example, it + is no longer necessary to explicitly set a chunk size. + +* Only known fields are now allowed in configuration files. Unknown + fields cause an error. + +* It is now possible to back up multiple, distinct directories with + one client configuration. The `root` configuration is now `roots`, + and is a list of directories. + +* Problems in backing up a file no longer terminate the backup run. + Instead, the problem is reported at the end of the backup run, as a + warning. + +* The client now requires an HTTPS URL for the server. Plain HTTP is + now rejected. The TLS certificate for the server is verified by + default, but that can be turned off. + +* The client progress reporting is now a little clearer. + +* Unix domain sockets and named pipes (FIFO files) are now backed up + and restored. + +* The names of the user and group owning a file are backed up, but not + restored. + +* On the Obnam server, the Ansible playbook now installs a cron job to + renew the Let's Encrypt TLS certificate. + +## Bugs fixed + +* Temporary files created during backup runs are now automatically + deleted, even if the Obnam client crashes. + +* Symbolic links are now backed up and restored correctly. Previously + Obnam followed the link when backing up and created the link + wrongly. + +* The Ansible playbook to provision an Obnam server now enables the + systemd unit so that the Obnam server process starts automatically + after a reboot. + +## Changes to documentation + +* A tutorial has been added. + +The Obnam subplot (`obnam.md`), which describes the requirements, +acceptance criteria, and architecture of the software, has some +improvements: + +* a discussion of why Obnam doesn't use content-addressable storage + +* a description of the logical structure of backups as stored on the + backup server + +* a rudimentary first sketch of a threat model: the operator of the + backup server reads the backed up data + +* an initial plan for adding support for encryption to backups; this + is known to be simplistic and inadequate, but the goal is to get + started, and then iterate to get something acceptable, even if that + takes months + +## Thank you + +Several people have helped with this release, with changes or +feedback. I want to especially mention the following, with apologies +to anyone I have inadvertently forgotten: Alexander Batischev, Ossi +Herrala, Daniel Silverstone, Neal Walfield. + +# Version 0.2.2, released 2021-01-29 + +This is the first release of Obnam2. It can just barely make and +restore backups. It's ready for a light trial, but not for real use. +There's no encryption, and backups can't be deleted yet. Restores of +the entire backup work. |