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SYS-C0187 · Backup & Recovery

GFS Backup Retention Explained

Write a grandfather-father-son retention as counts you chose, and do not delete the only copy.

Updated 25 October 2026 · Explainer

This is an original planning guide. It is not a vendor manual, an official standard, or legal advice. Example addresses use documentation ranges. Review every command before you paste it.

What this hour is for

GFS keeps a daily, a weekly, and a monthly set. The planner and the storage calculator use numbers you type. They do not delete backups and they do not connect to a server.

Write how many of each you will keep and where the monthly copy lives. If that place is the same disk as the only daily, you do not have GFS yet. Do not delete a set during the reading to make the count match.

One dataset. A second application is a second plan.

The change you can finish

Apply nothing while you are writing the note. When the lab window opens, it is one change on the host named in the ticket. Read the draft, then the host, then decide.

Rollback is the file, the package version, or the snapshot you saved first. You do not invent a rollback after the only copy is gone.

  1. Name the data.
  2. Choose daily, weekly, and monthly counts.
  3. Name where the monthly copy lives.
  4. Do not delete a backup.
  5. Stop.

Mistakes that outlive the command

GFS Backup Retention Explained goes wrong in a small set of ways. The list is here so the ticket can forbid them before the window.

Decisions to write down

One decision for GFS Backup Retention Explained: Three counts are written. The monthly place is a different failure from the daily. Nothing was deleted. And the data is specific.

Checks before you call it done

Confirm this before you call the change done: The data is named. The three counts are written. The monthly place is written. No backup was deleted. And the plan is one dataset. If one of those fails, stop.

# Daily, weekly, monthly are counts you choose.
# Do not delete the only copy.
# The monthly copy is not the same single disk.

Before you leave the host

GFS Backup Retention Explained ends when the hostname in the prompt matches the hostname in the ticket. If it does not, you are on the wrong host. Stop. A command that succeeded on the wrong host is not progress.

The draft stays a draft until a person has read the names in it. A generator does not log into the host and does not know which disk is empty. You delete a line that names a host, a path, or an account you did not write down.

192.0.2.10/24, gateway 192.0.2.1, 198.51.100.0/24, 203.0.113.0/24, and 2001:db8::/32 are documentation. example.com is a documentation name. They belong in the note. They are not values you leave on a host because a draft included them.

prompt-for-this is a reminder that a secret is missing. It is not a password, a key, or a token you save in the ticket or in git. The real secret stays in the password store.

One change is the window. If two things move and the result is wrong, you will not know which one did it. The next change waits for its own page.

If the same step fails twice, stop for the day. The failure is the result. Adding a forum command beside a half-applied change produces a host nobody can rebuild. Restore the copy you took first.

A second person reads the hostname and the change aloud. If they cannot find them in the ticket, the note is not done. Silence is not agreement. Then leave the host alone.

This page is a planning guide. It is not a vendor manual, not an official standard, and not permission to touch a host you do not administer. You do not disable a firewall, AppArmor, or SELinux to make a check pass.

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