Networker

Re: [Networker] Q: How to tell Networker that files have NOT been modified?

2010-04-28 09:53:45
Subject: Re: [Networker] Q: How to tell Networker that files have NOT been modified?
From: Len Philpot <Len.Philpot AT CLECO DOT COM>
To: NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2010 08:51:46 -0500
> George Sinclair 
> 
> If putting the old client back fixed the problem then maybe my surmise 
> is incorrect here, but is it possible that the file permissions, 
> ownership or group somehow changed? The only time I've seen files get 
> backed up that shouldn't - this was on Unix - was when the change of 
> file status occurred wherein the files' permissions, ownership or group 
> had been changed, but its content did not. In other words, someone or 
> some process, ran some operation, e.g. 'chown' or 'chmod' on a bunch of 
> files, which forces a change of file status (in the inode) on the 
> affected files, so the modtimes remain as they were (ls -ld file), but 
> the file status is new (ls -lc file).

I've seen that in the past. On one client, there was a special backup that 
was run quarterly using BackupExec instead of Networker. BE would reset 
all the archive bits, so that subsequent diffs were essentially fulls for 
Networker.

However, as far as we can determine there are no external factors at work 
here. We'll see tonight, since all but one of my "reset fulls" from last 
night have completed. The other one (almost 800 GB) probably won't finish 
until lunch, but that's just how it goes.

 
> It's my understanding that NW captures files whose file status has been 
> updated since the previous backup, not the modtime. But, of course, 
> anytime the modtime changes, so does the file status time, but not 
> necessarily vice versa, e.g. chown, chmod, etc. In fact, even if the 
> permissions, ownership or group is reset to what it already is, the 
> change of file status is still updated. Not sure if any of this is the 
> case with Netware?

I suspect at a high level it's the same, if not in the details. But as I 
said, we haven't seen any indication of it here. One interesting side note 
is that with the previous client, the reported backup size is slightly 
smaller and the number of files backed up is slightly more... weird.


> We had a client once wherein a bunch of files kept getting their 
> permissions changed every night, forcing huge incrementals, so I 
> overrode the default backup behavior and created a directive that forced 

> the backups to operate based on modtime, e.g.
> 
> << /path >>
>    +mtimeasm: .?* *

That's interesting to keep in mind if we see it happening here.

Thanks.

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