odd error message during backup

[Sunhillow]

During backup of an Isilon SMB share I receive such error messages:

08/17/2021 21:02:21 ANS0361I DIAG: fioScanDirEntry(): *** Skipping unreadable directory: '\\xxxx.storage.xxxx\data_backup$\xxxx\xxxxx\.'

Client version is 8.1.10.0, running under Windows Server 2019

I wonder why the client even tries to back up these "directories"

 

[marclant]

I wonder why the client even tries to back up these "directories"

The client backs up all directories under a filesystem and only files specified by your combination of includes/excludes.

So, there appears to be a problem with that directory and it's skipping it. You should be the admin of that share to look into it. You could exclude the directory, but that has to be used with extreme caution, if you exclude a directory with exclude.dir, no files or subdirectories under it will be backed up even if explicitly included.

So the best course of action is to address the issue with the directory.

 

[Sunhillow]

Thanks for your answer!
The funny thing is that "." is seen as a directory:


Currently I have it running with client version 8.1.12.0 and if the error persists will open a software issue.
There are too many such directories to exclude them

 

[marclant]

Yeah, but "." on most filesystems is reserved to mean the current directory, not an actual directory name.


So I can see how any application that is trying to process "." could have trouble since it means the current directory, but it's not the current directory. And I don't think you can exclude a directory named "." as any application will handle it as the current directory.

I don't even know how they managed to create that directory. It's not possible on Windows:


It's not possible on AIX:


And not possible on Linux:


As I see it, you have 3 options:
1 - exclude its parent directory if the immediate parent to "." is always the same name:
exclude.dir \\xxxx.storage.xxxx\data_backup$\...\EssentialSounds\Default
2 - talk to EssentialSounds support to see why and how they created a directory called "." and how to remove it
3 - live with the errors, but that's not good because all your backups will show up as failed, so you won't know if you encounter more serious problems unless you read the logs daily.

 

[marclant]

The funny thing is that "." is seen as a directory:

Can you check directly on the NAS, not through a share to see how that directory shows up and if it can be read?

 

[Sunhillow]

Can you check directly on the NAS, not through a share to see how that directory shows up and if it can be read?

My NAS colleague did not see such a directory.
These error messages appeared even in some windows home directories which also reside on Isilon OneFS.

A test backup of the directory tree where the screenshot comes from has completed now without error. The directory is now marked inactive!

So this looks like a glitch in the older client version. Only Mac, Windows and Linux computers are writing there, which all do not allow directories named "."

But funny things happen sometimes. In some cases Apple computers successfully create directories with a trailing blank.

 

[marclant]

The whole thing is really strange.

One thing, on the NAS, I'm guessing is Linux/Unix based, on there, files or directories that start with "." are hidden, not sure if they did "ls" or "ls -a". But I guess it doesn't matter, if they do ls -a, they will see "." at the top.

If using a Windows or a Mac machine and you browse to that path, do you see the "." directory too?

 

[Sunhillow]

In the Windows command shell, the "dir" command shows "." and "..." as directories, which are just the abbreviations for the current directory and the parent directory. Not real directories. The file explorer does not show them.

I never saw this ANS0361I message on native windows storage or non-grid NAS storage, so it is probably a combination of glitches of Isilon and dsmc.exe.

Tomorrow morning in the daily conference call with my colleagues (including the storage guys) I will raise this issue again.

 

[Sunhillow]

So my colleagues swear with all their hearts that the Isilon software does not allow directories with the name "."

The newer BA client has fixed this, so I am quite happy now.