Use lxc copy for historical backups

LXD
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1

Hello
Using Ubuntu 20.04; zfs and latest stable snap package of LXD.
We have prod. servers with SSD zpools running the containers and a backup server with HHD zpool to collect and store daily snapshots from the former.
Snapshots are created on the prod servers via lxc snapshot and purged after a couple of days. On the backup server the snapshots remain for a longer time as historical backup.

I wonder if this behavior could be replicated with pure lxd tools. lxc copy transfers a container and all the actual snapshots to the backup server wonderfully; but it also deletes old snapshots on the backup side which were purged on the prod. server side.
Can I avoid that somehow?
Any other ideas for this use-case?
Thanks!

2

There’s currently no variant of lxc copy --refresh which doesn’t also delete deprecated snapshots from the target. I’m not 100% sure that it’s something we could do with all storage backends. Currently --refresh is limited to rsync which definitely would let you do this, but as we’re working towards using native send/receive mechanisms, the introduction of additional snapshots on the target could confuse things.