If I have a full image backup scheduled every 60 days, will an Archive setting/window of “Archive Every” 7 days, “Archive For” 130 days, “Window” ;;*;6 auto archive that last full image on a Saturday once that Saturday is >60 days since last archive?
Is the archiving process kicked off on the existence of a backup “set” meeting the criteria (within last “Archive Every” setting) or is the archiving process started by some internal flag that a backup of the type being archived has occurred since the last archival window?
What is going wrong?
Full Image Backup: Every 60 days (successfully occurred)
Archive Settings:
Archive Every: 7 days
Archive For: 130 days
Archive Window: *; *; *; 6
Backup Type: Full Image Backup
Volume Letters: ALL
No Full Image Backups have ever been Auto-Archived. I am confused. I am able to get the Auto-Archive settings working for incremental file backups.
Any insight would be helpful in this endeavor.
Try lowering the Archive Every to 6
Edit
And make sure the setting is also applied on the actual client, not only the server.
I have that setting in there as well (Every 6 days and Every 7 days). I also have a “rule” setting for archive every hour. All attempts leave no auto archive for the full image backup. All of these rules are on the client only. When I select client in the top box, all the server rules appear as well as all the client rules.
A curious question: I get the interval part - “archive every x period of time”. But for the FIRST archive, it is x period of time since WHEN? Since the rule was saved in the settings? Since the last backup? Since the last nightly management?
No you don’t.
I suggest you press the ? next to “archive window”
correct. My mistake, I did not have archive every 6 days. But I do have “less than 7 days” rules in there. Is 6 a magical number?
As to the ? next to “archive window”. Since I have pressed that numerous times, although I don’t expect you to have known that, could you also please press the ? next to the “archive window” and show me where it answers the question I asked - The archiving operation takes place for the first archive, since WHEN? What basepoint? I have it set in some instances to archive in a window of all day (every minute, hour, day, month). So when I set a rule of Archive Every Hour, when does it archive? An hour since WHEN? (A multiple choice selection: a) Since Rule was Saved. b) Since Last Backup (of whichever type specified). c) Since completion of last Nightly Management.
And…for the record, regardless of a, b, or c as the answer - no archiving has occurred [for me, for full image backup].
One thing I’m allergic to is giving advice that is not followed.
I pressed the ? and found this, can you not read?
To archive a backup every Friday we would set “Archive every” to a value greater than one day but less than 7 days. This works because both conditions have to apply: The time since the last backup archival must be greater than “Archive every” and the server must be currently in the archive window.
My apologies for causing your allergies to flare up.
So, I’ll try it the only way possible. I set it to archive every 2 days. It’s been nearly an hour now. The last full image backup was completed June 23, 2023 at 02:32 local time. So far, no archive has been set. The archive window has no specifications other than *.
Per the only way as described: Archive Every is definitely greater than one day (then why give the option for hours???), less than 7 days, AND the server is in the archive window.
and oh - one of the things I detest (no allergies here) is someone cherry-picking information to support their view, profess it to be the answer, when clearly additional examples exist in the information. For example:
Yes if I want a backup every week, set the Archive Every to something greater than 1 day, less than 7. First part of the rule. Then set the Window to a specific day. When both conditions apply, magically an archive occurs once per week. No missed windows. [Archive Every is less than Archive Window].
HOWEVER: That same ? / help file gives this example:
Other examples are easier. To archive a backup on the first of every month the window would be
*;1;*;*
and “Archive every” something like 2-27 days.
Clearly this example is greater than 1. It is also clearly greater than 7 (surprised are you?). When the month rolls around, archive every has been surpassed (thus TRUE), and machine is in the window (TRUE), and an archive works.
My initial setup was desiring an archive every 60 days with an archive window of any time (all asterisks). Once I determined maybe there was the possibility of missing the window AND the archive every, I then proceeded to 7 days, then 6 days (your suggestion), then 12 hours. All result in no archiving. I am left with the only possible question (the original) archive every 7 days, 6 days, 12 hours, since when? It has most definitely been more than 12 hours since I saved the 12 hour rule.
Crickets I hear.
And you will hear nothing else until you LEARN how to read.
Is it the first of the month? I thought the date was 24:th today.
Or as you initially posted your settings:
Is it Saturday today???
I’m done.
If you cant understand, read more.
Your attitude is terrible.
So (in the same terrible attitude as yours - surely I know how to read):
Archive Settings:
Archive Every: 2 days
Archive For: 130 days
Archive Window: *; *; *; *
Backup Type: Full Image Backup
Volume Letters: ALL
Is it ANY TIME during the window? YES
IS THERE AN ARCHIVE?? NO
Seems even your way doesn’t work.
Sorry Charlie.
I deleted all other conditions to ensure there were no “conflicts” and to do it exactly your way. Still no joy. The rule was made and saved at roughly 2:00 local time, about 25 minutes ago.
Easy to respond “your a dummy, can’t you read, idiot” when an isolated example “proves” you are “right”. Hard data showing the contrary…hmmmm…Not so easy.
Crickets I hear.
Archive Settings:
Archive Every: 1 hour
Archive For: 130 days
Archive Window: *; *; *; *
Backup Type: Full Image Backup
Volume Letters: ALL
Interval for full image backups: 60 days
Desired outcome: Auto archive full image backups for 130 days, allowing 2 full image backups for more than a week before deleting the first full image backup.
Attempts: Set Archive Every to 1 day, 2 days, 6 days, 7 days, all with no restrictions on the archive window (all asterisks). There are two full backup images both within the last 120 days. This last attempt was to set for Archive Every: 1 hour. Two hour ago. There has been no archive since that time. So the first archive where both conditions apply (1 hour since last archive - presumably since rule inception: TRUE; Archive Window no restrictions: TRUE). My interpretation of this attempt: Either first archive occurs AFTER FIRST full backup image that occurs AFTER rule is saved; OR first archive occurs AFTER Nightly Management and is applied to all current existing full image backups. The second of those possibilities will be confirmed or not tomorrow. If failure again, I will initiate a full image backup manually to test the first part of that interpretation.
After those experiments, I’m totally out of ideas for how to understand what is not working with this process. I have it working well for file backups.
As in the last post. The archive setting did not get placed on any existing full image backups after the nightly management. The last hypothesis is that the archive settings only apply to backups that occur since the rule was saved. I will conduct a full image backup to see if that triggers the one hour archiving rule.
Edit: Full image backup after the 1 hour archive every setting saved; No archive one hour later; Forced nightly maintenance; No archive after completion or one hour later. Next saved rule is Archive every two days (saved before full image backup). Check in 48 hours for archive.
Archive Settings:
Archive Every: 2 days
Archive For: 130 days
Archive Window: *; *; *; *
Backup Type: Full Image Backup
Volume Letters: ALL
Interval for full image backups: 60 days
Desired outcome: Auto archive full image backups for 130 days, allowing 2 full image backups for more than a week before deleting the first full image backup.
I forced a full image backup 2 days ago. It started at 09:26 local and finished at 09:46 local. I saved the rule for archiving 3 days ago. This AM at both 09:30 and 09:50 local (last full image backup >2 days) and within the archive window are both now TRUE conditions. I am making the assumption, since I can find no reference in the Administration Manual, that the first condition, “The time since the last backup archival must be greater than “Archive every”” is the time since the last backup - if no prior archival has occurred.
The last experiment with this setup is to manually archive an earlier backup (now it would be an anchor to the stated condition) to see if that would trigger the auto archive process. More updates to see if I can find a workable set of settings to accomplish the stated objective to follow.
None of the prior changes have resulted in a successful full image backup auto archive. I am left with the possible limitation: the backup cycle/frequency must be less than the archive cycle/frequency, regardless of the backup window or the archive window. It also does not set auto archive on any pre-existing backup not performed with the current settings (or manually).
My current saved settings:
Archive Settings:
Archive Every: 8 days
Archive For: 15 days
Archive Window: *; *; *; 6 (archive every Saturday)
Backup Type: Full Image Backup
Volume Letters: ALL
Full Image Backups Settings:
Interval for full backup: 7 days
Backup Window: 1-7/ 02-04
So the backup interval is definitely less than the archive interval. This rule was saved on 07/28 and resulted in a full backup in the window on the AM of 7/29. No auto archive was marked, even though the last Full Backup Image is dated 06/23.
Next check-in is this coming weekend - Saturday 8/8 - Is another full backup initiated? Is the full backup that was initiated by these settings on 7/29 marked as an auto-archive?
Stay tuned.
(And for those who want to rely on RTFM, idjitt, none of these settings and their interactions to potentially result in the success I am looking for, are detailed.)
I think this is a bug and I now have the same problem.
TL/DR: archive broke after updating server and recreating archive tasks
Maybe my experience can help someone track it down.
I’ve been using urBackup since 2017 or so and archiving worked fine. Just recently, I upgraded the server to 2.5.33 from server software that was probably 1 or 2 years old.
After the upgrade, If I am not mistaken, the archiving was still working fine for both files and images.
Two week ago, I decided to adjust my archiving schedule and recreated the entire schedule.
After doing this, the file archiving works as designed but the image archiving does not work. It seems like the ‘cron-like’ task that sets the archive date isn’t running for the image jobs.
Is there a command line I can run to manually set the archive date or some other way to help debug this?
For the record, I have never been able to get image archiving settings to work ever since I began using urbackup. I finally just settled into saving x amount of image backups - I do weekly images, save a month’s worth. Then I adjust the frequency and maximum AND archive settings for incremental backups. I do daily incremental backups, keeping them for 1 month, using the archive setting (which DOES work on incrementals) to archive 1 per week. Then the keep maximum incrementals drops the oldest archive off keeping another 4 weekly incremental backups.
It works for me - but I really don’t have a hell of a lot of mission critical work. What I am most interested in is being able to go back x number of days and regenerating a file that is lost or modified incorrectly if I need to. I have used both image backups and selective files found in the incremental backups to save me a few times in the past two years.
If the archiving for images ever got back to working, I’d set the archive rule, letting the increment move from once a week to keeping monthly incrementals for at least a Quarter, if not two Quarters. I always do a full file backup at the beginning of the year, incrementals weekly for the rest of the year.
In order for such a problem to be fixed it needs to be
- Either reproduced by a developer. This needs detailed steps to get into the situation where the archiving doesn’t work (with exact values to enter). Upgrading from an old version complicates this, because this would have to be included in the reproduction steps (if necessary)
- Debug level log files – see Having problems with UrBackup? Please read before posting . Maybe there are some hints about the issue in the debug level log file
- Database of the misbehaving server . In this case this would be
backup_server.dbandbackup_server_settings.db. That, together with version information would directly let a develoepr have a server in the state where archiving does not work.
A unreleased fix in this area is that image backup archving might not work if the letters are set to no all ( Fix iteration over letters to archive · uroni/urbackup_backend@1ea7946 · GitHub ).