Topic: Workstation Backup fails silently [SOLVED]

[DanB35]

I've been running SME Server for many years (since the days of e-smith 3.0 at least, now on SME 8.1), but haven't messed around with the backup function until very recently.  Now that I have a FreeNAS server with plenty of space, I figured it was time to get serious about running regular backups.  After a few false starts (I never could get it working with NFS), I was able to get it running a daily backup to an SMB share.  Then, a few days later, it stopped.

I was, I think, able to troubleshoot the issue and get it backing up again.  The problem is that there was no warning that the backups were failing for almost a week--the only way I found out was by taking a look at the backup share and noticing that nothing there had been touched in a while.  This seems like a pretty serious problem--backups tend to be fairly important, and it could be disastrous if they just weren't there when they were needed.  Is something broken on my system, or is this by design?

[TerryF]

Odd as there is an email sent to admin on a failed backup, maybe check your servers settings, admin address or forward and any spam/junk settings on your email client.

See example below
==================================
DAILY BACKUP TO WORKSTATION REPORT
==================================
Backup of rslserver.upweybelgraversl.org.au started at Mon Apr 21 01:30:08 2014
Backup of mysql databases has been done
Mounting backup shared directory <192.168.1.11:serverbackup>
Using set number 1 of 2
Attempt incremental backup number 28 of 27
Backup temp directory /mnt/smb/tmp_dir/rslserver.upweybelgraversl.org.au is mounted and is writable
Backup base file name is inc-028-201404210130
Starting the backup with a timeout of : 43170 seconds


 --------------------------------------------
 61 inode(s) saved
   including 0 hard link(s) treated
 0 inode(s) changed at the moment of the backup and could not be saved properly
 0 byte(s) have been wasted in the archive to resave changing files
 64763 inode(s) not saved (no inode/file change)
 0 inode(s) failed to be saved (filesystem error)
 264 inode(s) ignored (excluded by filters)
 0 inode(s) recorded as deleted from reference backup
 --------------------------------------------
 Total number of inode(s) considered: 65088
 --------------------------------------------
 EA saved for 8 inode(s)
 --------------------------------------------
Moving backup files to target directory /mnt/smb/rslserver.upweybelgraversl.org.au/set1
Updating catalog
*** No backup allowed or error during backup ***
Failed to delete set 4 from catalog.

[DanB35]

Well, don't I feel dumb--I thought I'd set up the server to send admin stuff to my personal email, but clearly hadn't.  Yes, those reports (along with a lot of other stuff) were in the admin mailbox.  Thanks!

[TerryF]

No worries, can you put solved in the Subject please..

Have a great day

[DanB35]

Done.  And now have the admin mailbox set up in Thunderbird as a separate account, so I don't accumulate another six years' worth of email before I check it again.