Release v1.5.3

[buhtz]

Summary

The minimum supported Python version has been raised to 3.9. The user manual has migrated to a new format and build system, now including sections on user callbacks and detailed example scripts. The code base has undergone extensive refactoring. FCron support has been added. The English strings in the GUI have been optimized. Serbian language is now available in both Latin and Cyrillic scripts. Interlingua (Occidental) has been introduced as a new language. The libnotify-bin (notify-send) dependency has been removed, as Back In Time now uses DBus for notifications.

Contributors

This version received extensive support from external contributors (in alphabetical order by last name or nickname):

• Keith Bates @dnerever
• David Gibbs @fallingrock
• Johannes @hannes101
• Manuel @feman323
• Ihor Pryyma @Ihor-Pryyma
• Timothy Southwick @NickNackGus
• Felix Stupp @Zocker1999NET
• Derek Veit @DerekVeit
• Kosta Vukicevic @stcksmsh
• David Wales @daviewales
• Paul Worrall @Silver-Saucepan
• Also not to be forgotten are the many people who supported the project by testing it, providing feedback, reporting issues, and analyzing problems.

Installation

This release contains the source code only but no distro packages. To install the new release from the source code please follow our build & installation instructions.

Known major issues open

• qt_probing.py may hang with high CPU usage when running Back In Time as root via cron (qt5_probing.py makes xorg.bin run with high CPU usage, eating RAM #1592)
• File permissions handling and therefore possible non-differential backups ("New" permissions handling in 1.2.0 causes re-backup of files that haven't changed #988 & Files with permissions r--r--r-- being repeatedly backed up #994)

Changelog

• Doc: User manual (build with MkDocs) (Migrate user manual to MkDocs #1838) (Kosta Vukicevic @stcksmsh)
• Doc: User-callback topic in user manual (User manual: Document user-callback scripts for users (migrate to MkDocs) #1659)
• Feature: Support language Interlingua (Occidental)
• Feature: Warn if destination directory is formatted as NTFS (Invalid argument (22) (NTFS target drive) #1854) (David Gibbs @fallingrock)
• Breaking Change: Minimal Python version 3.9 required (Drop Python3.8 support this year #1731)
• Breaking Change: Auto migration of config version 4 or lower not longer supported (refactor!: Automigration of (very) old config files (version 4 or lower) not supported anymore #1857)
• Fix: Prevent duplicates in Exclude/Include list of Manage Profiles dialog
• Fix: Fix Qt segmentation fault when canceling out of unconfigured BiT (Segmentation fault on Exit (Qt) #1095) (Derek Veit @DerekVeit)
• Fix: Correct global flock fallbacks (Automated backups failing due to KeyException in flock.py #1834) (Timothy Southwick @NickNackGus)
• Fix: Use SSH key password only if it is valid, otherwise request it from user (backintime-askpass and ssh-add enter infinite loop when cached SSH key password does not match current password #1852) (David Wales @daviewales)
• Feature: Support fcron (Support for fcrontab #610)
• Feature: User message about release candidate (Proposal: Message to users about Release Candidate feedback #1906)
• Refactor: General tab and its Schedule section
• Refactor: Own module for Manage Profiles dialog and separate Generals tab code (refactor: Separate code about Manage profile dialog #1865)
• Refactor: Remove class OrderedSet
• Refactor: Remove os.system() from class Execute
• Refactor: Systray notifications send utilize DBUS instead of notify-send (Fix: Send notifies directly using python-dbus replacing notify-send #1156) (Felix Stupp @Zocker1999NET)
• Refactor!: Remove unused config field "user_callback.no_logging" ("user_callback.no_logging" not in GUI / Maybe remove it #1887)
• Refactor!: Remove eCryptFS check for home folder (Remove "tools.checkHomeEncrypt()" (was: Password cache and encrypted home directory) #1855)
• Dependency: Remove libnotify-bin (notify-send) (Fix: Send notifies directly using python-dbus replacing notify-send #1156)
• Build: Replace "pycodestyle" linter with "flake8" (Support ed25519 SSH keys for SSH tests #1839)

[Fantu]

hi, about
Breaking Change: Auto migration of config version 4 or lower not longer supported
could you please tell me from which version of backintime is it still supported?

I need to know for example if is still supported the version from Debian 12 (for the upgrade from Debian 12 to Debian 13 that probably will have this version)

[buhtz]

Hi Fantu,

thanks for asking. I added the relevant PR #1857 to the changelog.

hi, about Breaking Change: Auto migration of config version 4 or lower not longer supported could you please tell me from which version of backintime is it still supported?

Not sure if I understand your question correct. But to my knowledge config version 4 was supported by BIT versions lower than 1.0. Version 1.0 was released 14 years ago.

In short: This modification is irrelevant to you and the users. The "breaking" in "breaking change" is just theoretical but not in practice.

I need to know for example if is still supported the version from Debian 12 (for the upgrade from Debian 12 to Debian 13 that probably will have this version)

Sorry, I am not able to understand that English.
I don't see any consequences for Debian versions from oldoldstable up to upstream.

The PR is about the following:

BIT internally tried to use a separate version scheme for its config file "syntax". The current version is 6. BIT is able to migrate older config files to the newest version.
With this PR BIT now migrate only version 5 to 6 and just warn/error about version 4, 3, 2, 1.

But the version scheme never worked well in BIT and was never strictly used. I am not able to reconstruct all the details from the git history. According to an in-code comment, between BIT version 0.9 and version 1.2 there was a bug and the version wasn't stored correct.

According to another in-code comment, the config version 4 seems to be used in BIT versions before 1.0. Back In Time Version 1.0 was released 14 (!) years ago.

Based on my research it is irrelevant. And tagging it with "breaking" was a bit to pendantic. 😆

[Fantu]

Thanks for reply, I also did a fast look to https://github.com/bit-team/backintime/pull/1857/files
from comments in that config.version < 4 is for BIT < 1.0, so ok, about config.version == 4 instead I didn't find what is the latest version with it (or first version with config version 5), there is written only the latest BIT version supporting version 4 (1.5.2).
After I did a fast check on one my Ubuntu 20.04 installation with BIT 1.2.1 and have config version 6, so should be version 6 also newer Debian 12 version (1.3.3)