Topic: affa makes no hardlinks

[adlaw]

Hi,

freenas is NOT linux and so you may likely have different versions/implementation of NFS with different startup parameters..

Sure ! But probably, there is a way to do the same things on two POSIX systems... More especially hard links certainly work on NFS/Linux, as well as on LINUX and NFS/BSD...

in any case I would say that the issue is not with SME.. it works with FreeNAS..

you should search on mint/ubuntu side

It's true. I was just asking here because I know that some people are backuping their SME on a linux station, and was hoping they could help me, even if the issue is certainly not affa or SME.

Thanks for your help anyway 

[Gary Douglas]

Using the same NFS storage server, when moving from AFFA ver2 on SME8 to AFFA ver3 on SME9, the archives began using the full GB per archive.
Backup jobs would complete in the usual time, but storage was diminishing quickly.
When mounting the NFS share, SME9 server defaulted to nfsvers=4, whereas SME8 was using NFSVER 3.
I mounted the NFS server from SME9 using nfsvers=3, which has solved the issue.

# vim /etc/fstab
192.168.100.2:/affa  /affa  nfs   rsize=32768,wsize=32768,nfsvers=3,timeo=600,intr,soft,bg  0 0

I have now migrated from SME8 / AFFAv2  to SME9 / AFFAv3, and retained all previous archives.
Using du -sh * from the SME9 (or SME8) shows the correct byte count per archive, confirming hardlinks are working.

[ReetP]

Using the same NFS storage server, when moving from AFFA ver2 on SME8 to AFFA ver3 on SME9, the archives began using the full GB per archive.
Backup jobs would complete in the usual time, but storage was diminishing quickly.
When mounting the NFS share, SME9 server defaulted to nfsvers=4, whereas SME8 was using NFSVER 3.
I mounted the NFS server from SME9 using nfsvers=3, which has solved the issue.

# vim /etc/fstab
192.168.100.2:/affa  /affa  nfs   rsize=32768,wsize=32768,nfsvers=3,timeo=600,intr,soft,bg  0 0

I have now migrated from SME8 / AFFAv2  to SME9 / AFFAv3, and retained all previous archives.
Using du -sh * from the SME9 (or SME8) shows the correct byte count per archive, confirming hardlinks are working.

Can that go in the Wiki, or possibly a a bug against the affa contrib ?

[Stefano]

Can that go in the Wiki, or possibly a a bug against the affa contrib ?

in bugzilla, definitely.. it's a bug (unexpected behaviour) IMO

@gary: could you please open it? thank you

[CharlieBrady]

When mounting the NFS share, SME9 server defaulted to nfsvers=4, whereas SME8 was using NFSVER 3.
I mounted the NFS server from SME9 using nfsvers=3, which has solved the issue.

So it seems that you have found an NFS4 implementation issue in Linux Mint.

[Stefano]

Charlie, there's no evidence that Gary Douglas is storing his data on a mint nfs storage, AFAICT

in any case, he said:

Using the same NFS storage server, when moving from AFFA ver2 on SME8 to AFFA ver3 on SME9, the archives began using the full GB per archive.

that means, IIUC, that affa3 changed its behaviour, giving unexpected results

[janet]

Stefano

Charlie, there's no evidence that Gary Douglas is storing his data on a mint nfs storage....

I would say that Charlie got confused with the OP adlaw, who was using Linux Mint

[Gary Douglas]

Stefano, I filed a bug with the following detail, per your request, but it is not a bug.
This thread seemed to have gone unanswered, thought this may help others using AFFA to NFS storage.
I have completed my cutover today, final gotcha was excluding directories with spaces. Seems it requires a *  instead of a space.

i.e;  Exclude=/home/e-smith/files/users/rob/home/My*Documents/My*Music

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bug 9186

Changing from SME8 AFFAv2 to SME9 AFFAv3 using the same NFS storage and taking over the AFFAv2 archives, caused all new archives to become the full archive size. i.e. hardlinks were not working.

I have run AFFAv2 on SME7/8 to NFS shared storage for many years without issues, originally from a SME7/8 server to FreeNAS. Since a few years ago my NFS Server is now a Proxmox/Debian with additional HP410/RAID5 storage shared using debian nfs-kernel-server. SME8/AFFAv2 and SME9/AFFAv3 are virtual on another proxmox box.

By default SME8 attaches to the NFS share using nfsvers=3 and hardlinks have never been a problem. SME9 by default connects to the same NFS share using nfsvers=4. The issue of hardlinks failing appears to be when using nfsvers=4. By setting SME9 to use nfsvers=3, hardlinks are maintained on the AFFA archives.

There is no bug with SME or AFFA (nor using NFS if configured correctly), bug only raised on request of Stefano.

[janet]

Gary Douglas

I think this would have worked

Exclude="/home/e-smith/files/users/rob/home/My Documents/My Music"

(or with single inverted commas)

Exclude='/home/e-smith/files/users/rob/home/My Documents/My Music'

[Stefano]

Stefano, I filed a bug with the following detail, per your request, but it is not a bug.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bug 9186

Changing from SME8 AFFAv2 to SME9 AFFAv3 using the same NFS storage and taking over the AFFAv2 archives, caused all new archives to become the full archive size. i.e. hardlinks were not working.

I have run AFFAv2 on SME7/8 to NFS shared storage for many years without issues, originally from a SME7/8 server to FreeNAS. Since a few years ago my NFS Server is now a Proxmox/Debian with additional HP410/RAID5 storage shared using debian nfs-kernel-server. SME8/AFFAv2 and SME9/AFFAv3 are virtual on another proxmox box.

By default SME8 attaches to the NFS share using nfsvers=3 and hardlinks have never been a problem. SME9 by default connects to the same NFS share using nfsvers=4. The issue of hardlinks failing appears to be when using nfsvers=4. By setting SME9 to use nfsvers=3, hardlinks are maintained on the AFFA archives.

There is no bug with SME or AFFA (nor using NFS if configured correctly), bug only raised on request of Stefano.

one of the main feature of Affa is the use of hardlinks.. maybe is not a "real" bug but just a documentation one
anyway,  since the main rule here is "if something doesn't work as expected out of the box is likely a bug", a bug in bugzilla is needed

than you for your time

[Gary Douglas]

Janet, I have tried

Exclude="/home/e-smith/files/users/rob/home/My Documents/My Music"
  and
Exclude='/home/e-smith/files/users/rob/home/My Documents/My Music'

  but both started fetching files + folders from /My Music

AFFAv2 worked with DB command, and stored Exclusions correctly if you said;  db affa setprop htsvr Exclude[0] /home/e-smith/files/users/rob/home/"My Documents"/"My Music"
 
  but that fails also on my AFFAv3.

I can confirm Exclude=/home/e-smith/files/users/rob/home/My*Documents/My*Music  works for Excluding folders with spaces

[guest22]

spaces in paths are never a good thing....

[ReetP]

spaces in paths are never a good thing....

So sayeth The Oracle 

Beers are on you mate.... FOSDEM here we come !

[guest22]

AFFAv2 worked with DB command, and stored Exclusions correctly if you said;  db affa setprop htsvr Exclude[0] /home/e-smith/files/users/rob/home/"My Documents"/"My Music"
 
  but that fails also on my AFFAv3.

I can confirm Exclude=/home/e-smith/files/users/rob/home/My*Documents/My*Music  works for Excluding folders with spaces

Have you filed a bug so the AFFA developers can take a look?