BackupPC-users

Re: [BackupPC-users] Pooling doesn't work

2009-10-08 13:31:27
Subject: Re: [BackupPC-users] Pooling doesn't work
From: Patric Hafner <patric AT hafnernetz DOT de>
To: Holger Parplies <wbppc AT parplies DOT de>
Date: Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:27:16 +0200
Hi,

thanks for replying and explaining. This made some things clearer for me.

Holger Parplies schrieb:
> Hi again,
> 
> I was just going to add that your subject is incorrect, but I see that you
> seem to be having a second issue. Sorry for replying a bit hastily, but your
> wording does make it rather easy to draw incorrect conclusions (or rather miss
> essential points).
I'm sorry. My English isn't as that good as it should be.

> 
> Patric Hafner wrote on 2009-10-08 16:29:54 +0200 [[BackupPC-users] Pooling 
> doesn't work]:
>> [...]
>> My problem is, that during an incremental backup nearly every file is
>> marked as "create", so nearly every file will be downloaded again.
>> About 20% are marked as "pool".
> 
> Note that "pool" also means "downloaded again". Not downloaded due to rsync
> savings is "same" (in a full backup) or the file simply not appearing in the
> log (in an incremental backup).
Okay, I understand.

> 
>> But those files marked as "create" haven't changed since the last run,
>> timestamps are still the same. For example the whole /etc directory will
>> be downloaded every day. And I can surely say that nothing changed there.
> 
> Timestamps are not the only indication of change. It is *possible* to modify a
> file without changing the timestamp (e.g. resetting it after the change). But
> that is probably not what is happening here.

Okay, but why assumes rsync that one day after performing a full backup,
that some files changed which a definitively not changed.
I did the following to exclude changes: I setup a new linux client
created some directories in /home/.  After that I started a full backup.
  One day later I performed an incremental backup. The log says that the
whole /etc and /home directory is set to create. Why this behavior?

I guess pooling works, and my main problem is: Too many files are marked
unexplainable as create.


> 
> It would appear that pooling is only *partially* working (which is confusing
> in itself). You couldn't have files marked "pool" if there was no pooling at
> all. I would *guess* that you have probably incorrectly changed $TopDir after
> having made some backups. You probably have tons of "link failed ..." errors
> in your log files. New files are not added to the pool, so only files already
> present from your first backups would be found there, though linking would not
> work for them, either.
> 
> Again, for anything more than educated guesses about what might be going
> wrong, we need details about your setup.
> 
> - What version, what installation method, what OS, which paths, which
>   filesystem(s), how partitioned?

BackupPC 3.1.0 that comes with Debian Lenny. One root partition (ext3,
/, normal SATA drive), one data partition (ext3, /data, external RAID 5
array).

> - What did you change recently? Move $TopDir? How? See
>   
> http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/backuppc/index.php?title=Change_archive_directory
>   for details on what you should or should not have done.

I created a soft-link during installation: /var/lib/backuppc ->
/data/backuppc/. No backup was made before creating this soft-link.

> - Is there anything suspicious in your log files ($LogDir/LOG and
>   $TopDir/pc/hostname/XferLOG.NN.z)?

Everything fine. No "link failed" errors.

> 
>> This results an an extensive amount of traffic, which is unacceptable.
> 
> Err, no. It results in an excessive amount of storage being used. Traffic is
> independant of storage. If pooling was working correctly, you could still have
> the same amount of traffic, but everything should be marked "pool" and stored
> only once. Conversely, if rsync transfers were working correctly, you would
> save traffic, but that does not imply that pooling would work. True, for this
> one host unchanged files would be re-used, but they would not be matched up
> against independent copies of identical content (from the same host or
> different hosts).

Thanks for explaining.

>> i'm running BackupPC 3.1.0 with Debian Lenny. BackupPC is responsible
>> for about 5 Clients which are backupped over rsync/ssh.
>>
>> My problem is, that during an incremental backup nearly every file is
>> marked as "create", so nearly every file will be downloaded again.
>> About 20% are marked as "pool".
>> But those files marked as "create" haven't changed since the last run,
>> timestamps are still the same. For example the whole /etc directory will
>> be downloaded every day. And I can surely say that nothing changed there.
>> [...]
>> Does anyone has an idea? This would be great.
> 
> yes, you are probably incorrectly using incremental backups, but since you
> don't say anything about your configuration, we can only guess.

Configuration details see above.


> Level 1 incremental backups download everything that has changed since the
> last full backup. Presuming your last full was long ago, or you have modified
> your configuration since then (e.g. changed from a test backup of, say, /lib,
> to a full backup of all of your root file system), you will be downloading
> everything changed or added since the last full backup with every incremental.
> 

Thanks for explaining.

> Run a full backup and see if the following incrementals behave better. 

I tried this already out. See above.

> send us some details about your configuration (esp. full and incremental
> backup scheduling settings) to let us help you adjust your schedule. In short:
> you *need* regular full backups.

One full per week, all other days incremental level 1.

Best regards,
Patric



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