back up to the same file location every time

[kylrth]

I have a cron job configured to run docker-compose exec -T photoprism photoprism backup -a -i -f every so often, but I'm noticing that the backups are stored in the PHOTOPRISM_BACKUP_PATH in a file named with the date. I use restic for remote backups on my system, and restic does periodic snapshots of files. It would make sense for photoprism backup -f to write to the same file every time, so that restic only stores the latest Photoprism backup in each snapshot and I don't have to periodically delete old Photoprism backups.

[kylrth]

Oh, I just saw in the code where (if present) you use the first argument to backup as the file name.

This isn't clear in the documentation for the command:

kyle@spaceship:~/photoprism$ docker-compose exec -T photoprism photoprism backup --help
NAME:
   photoprism backup - Creates album and index backups

USAGE:
   photoprism backup [command options] [arguments...]

OPTIONS:
   --force, -f   overwrite existing backup files
   --albums, -a  create album yaml file backups
   --index, -i   create index database backup

[lastzero]

You're right that this needs to be more clear & welcome to send a pull request if you figure out how to document the argument.

[lastzero]

We've added two more flags to specify custom backup paths. The SQL index backup may be written to stdout by passing - as argument:

NAME:
   photoprism backup - Creates album and index backups

USAGE:
   A custom index sql backup FILENAME may be passed as first argument. Use - for stdout.

OPTIONS:
   --force, -f         overwrite existing backup files
   --albums, -a        create album yaml file backups
   --albums-path PATH  custom album yaml file backup PATH
   --index, -i         create index sql database backup
   --index-path PATH   custom index sql database backup PATH

[kylrth]

The usage string should explain that by default it gets the backup path from PHOTOPRISM_BACKUP_PATH plus the date.

Also, why do we suddenly have two separate paths for albums and SQL, and what happens when I don't specify separate paths? Do they get placed in the same file? I also think it's redundant to have --albums and --albums-path. If --albums-path is specified, it should imply --albums.