Topic: Problems with backups

[Randall]

I have been experiencing all manner of problems with getting a functional backup process running on fully up-to-date 7.4 - spent probably a week and a half and it's still flakey. The whole backup system seems to be a minefield of gotchas, probably mostly due to the rather vague documentation of configuring the storage, etc. Right now I'm experiencing 2 problems that may be related. I'm attempting to back up to usb drive using the built-in dar backup (dar2 doesn't support incremental backup). The drive I'm using (a WD Passport 250G) is formatted as FAT, and always seems to mount at /media/usbdisk regardless of label. The backups sometimes (not always) get corrupted - the dar files get cross linked or something - windows chkdsk fixes it and leaves a bunch of truncated files. I've tried backup to workstation via share, and have had corruption there, too. Bought a new USB drive solefy for backups (160G drive in acomdata samba drive enclosure) with the intent of formatting ext3, but it fails to detect correctly (errors on usb detect) and does not mount (this drive works fine with anything else, including Linux). Anybody got any ideas how I can get this to work ? Thanks in advance.

[piran]

Anybody got any ideas how I can get this to work ?

Backups are about confidence ~ absolute confidence.
Connect with reliable hardware ie about which you are confident.
THEN confidently run the backups.
They (SME and the SME contribs) work properly.
Your kit apparently doesn't. If it's only half as good as
you allege then it's still not good enough to consider.
YMMV ...actually it sounds like your mileage really does vary.

[CharlieBrady]

I have been experiencing all manner of problems with getting a functional backup process running on fully up-to-date 7.4

Please be sure to report each of those problems, in detail, via the bug tracker.

[chris burnat]

Please be sure to report each of those problems, in detail, via the bug tracker.

And please open one bug per issue, it is easier to handle for the Devs,
Thanks.

[Stefano]

The whole backup system seems to be a minefield of gotchas, probably mostly due to the rather vague documentation of configuring the storage, etc.

if you feel something is incomplete/wrong with the documentation please open a bug or feel free to join the wiki group and correct all the issues

Right now I'm experiencing 2 problems that may be related. I'm attempting to back up to usb drive using the built-in dar backup (dar2 doesn't support incremental backup). The drive I'm using (a WD Passport 250G) is formatted as FAT, and always seems to mount at /media/usbdisk regardless of label

external usb disk shoul be formatted in ext3

The backups sometimes (not always) get corrupted - the dar files get cross linked or something - windows chkdsk fixes it and leaves a bunch of truncated files.

you shouldn't work on that usb disk with windows.. consider that AFAIK you can't do anything on windows with SME's backup file

I've tried backup to workstation via share, and have had corruption there, too.

as Charlie told you, please report all the issues in bugzilla

[Randall]

Thanks for all the comments. I agree that this needs to be solid, hence my concern. I'll need to play with this a bit more to determine what is going on. It's an old box (P3/500) but it's otherwise been pretty stable. It's been running for over a year reliable, and now I'm just starting to (try to) run regular backups as I'm storing more critical data on it. It appears that most of the issues relate to the USB disk system. Sometimes fails to detect that drive has been connected, or messes up the mount point (seen things like /media/ev__). The corruption is particularly troubling. I'll try using ext3 instead and see if that helps. Is this (failure to use vol name for mount point) due to base OS issues, and will it be better in 8.0 ? (Most up-to-date distros don't seem to care too much whether the drive if formatted ext2/3, FAT, ntfs, reiser, etc). I agree FAT is not the best, but that's what most drives use out of the box. I'm a bit concerned about the USB probe issue on my new drive (that's why I'm still using my FAT drive).

[mercyh]

Several observations,

FAT has a 4gb limit on a single file. This could be a problem although I think by default the backup software creates something like 700mb slices.

I have never been able to trust a usb backup. There are too many mounting issues. If you just plug the drive in and get it working and never touch it again you may be fine, but any sort of rotation that includes switching drives without manually unmounting or rebooting eventually breaks for me.

I have very reliably setup backup to workstation on the Lan and even over VPN offsite. It usually takes several tries and some monitoring to get the mount working correctly but once it has completed successfully several times it has been very stable for me. As another poster said YMMV. Most of the problems that I have with this are incorrect share information and software firewalls.

with any backup system
MONITOR
WATCH THE LOGS
DO TEST RESTORES

[toothandnail]

I'd be suprised if a PIII machine had anything more than USB 1.1 support. Even then, a number of motherboards of that vintage had very poor USB implementations. Even if the USB works reliably, the speed will be horribly low.

If you have to use that machine, it might be worth your while to either use the LAN (something like a small NAS unit) or look at getting a USB 2 PCI card to use in the machine, so long as you can find one that is supported by Linux (most should be, though I had a good deal of trouble with some of the Via USB 2 implementations).

paul.

[Randall]

Thanks again for the comments. As far as USB mounting is concerned, there definitely appear to be some stability issues. I'm still trying to characterize this (will submit a bug report when done), but it appears that a failed mount attempt  (such a attempt to back up with USB drive disconnected) will break the system such that it will never again create the mount point upon drive connect until the system is rebooted. There also appear to be other less obvious things that cause this as well. I am using an external USB card since, as pointed out, the on-board interface is a dreadfully slow USB 1.1. I probably will move to LAN backup as soon as I can add some extra space to my workstation.

[CharlieBrady]

Thanks again for the comments. As far as USB mounting is concerned, there definitely appear to be some stability issues. I'm still trying to characterize this (will submit a bug report when done), ...

Please report all problems as soon as you see them, and then add further observations as you collect them.

[Randall]

OK, I have filed a bug report for the mounting issues (and will add to it as I discover more).

Perhaps someone could give me a pointer on getting network backup to work. I can't get cifs to mount either. I've created a fresh share (Win7, using workgroup, not domain) and allowed full control access to everyone (for testing purposes), referred to it by either IP address or name, and given my personal account and password for the login. It fails with following:

Jan  5 17:16:48 e-smith kernel:  CIFS VFS: cifs_mount failed w/return code = -13

Not sure what I'm doing wrong - any ideas ?

Thanks again.

[mercyh]

This is typical of every workstation share I ever try to backup too. I always have to work through the mount issues. I have never used Win7 but have it running fine on vista so I don't think 7 should be a problem.

The first step is to setup the share and give it a name. Test the share with another windows machine by typing \\your.share.workstation.ip\ in the "start search" or "run" box. Make sure that the workstation you are testing with does not have correct credentials to access the share without you putting in a username and password. Put in the user name and password in the windows machine and browse to the share. Take note of what format you needed to use with this user and password (eg. backupuser and backuppass, or did you have to use machinename/backupuser and backuppass). Once you have figured out how the connection needs to be made from windows you will have a pretty good idea what you need for CIFS.

Hint: I usually create a backup user and password on the workstation with the share. This way if 6 months down the road I feel the need to change my password it does not break the backup share.


Now go back to the backup server-manager panel and duplicate what you did with windows. Use the share machine IP address and share name. Give the user and password just like you needed on the windows box and if the stars are all lined up correctly, the share will mount.

[Randall]

Thanks again - After considerable dicking around it seems to be working now.

[mercyh]

One more thing,

If you load a software firewall on that workstation there is a good chance it will break.