Successful backup does not contain any files, only empty directories

client
1

I was trying to back up a number of smb and iscsi drives that contain directories with hand-crafted permission sets which do not give localhost\SYSTEM or local administrators read access to the contents. When told to file-backup these drives, I get “successful” backups that contain only empty folders.

I know the solution to this is simple, give the urbackupclientbackend service permissions to read all the files that it is supposed to backup. Anyway I feel this should be logged as a warning to alert the administrator not everything that is supposed to be backed up is indeed in the backups.
Please let me know if missing permissions already cause warnings on your installations, maybe I have something configured wrong.

Server: Urbackup 2.1.19 on ubuntu
Client: 2.1.16 on Windows Server 2013

Anonymized log (should result in about 5TB of backed up files):
Level Time Message
Info

    07/20/17 04:19
      Starting scheduled incremental file backup...
    Info
      
    07/20/17 04:28
      Selected no components to backup
    Info
      
    07/20/17 04:28
      Scanning for changed hard links on volume of "F:\"...
    Info
      
    07/20/17 04:28
      Indexing of "***" done. 13 filesystem lookups 4770 db lookups and 8 db updates
    Info
      
    07/20/17 04:28
      Indexing of "***" done. 1 filesystem lookups 122 db lookups and 0 db updates
    Info
      
    07/20/17 04:28
      Scanning for changed hard links on volume of "U:\"...
    Info
      
    07/20/17 04:28
      Indexing of "***" done. 4 filesystem lookups 1308 db lookups and 4 db updates
    Info
      
    07/20/17 04:28
      Scanning for changed hard links on volume of "B:\"...
    Info
      
    07/20/17 04:28
      Indexing of "***" done. 1 filesystem lookups 65 db lookups and 0 db updates
    Info
      
    07/20/17 04:28
      Indexing of "***" done. 1 filesystem lookups 178 db lookups and 0 db updates
    Info
      
    07/20/17 04:28
      Scanning for changed hard links on volume of "C:\"...
    Info
      
    07/20/17 04:28
      Indexing of "***" done. 712 filesystem lookups 26402 db lookups and 28 db updates
    Info
      
    07/20/17 04:28
      Scanning for changed hard links on volume of "V:\"...
    Info
      
    07/20/17 04:28
      Indexing of "***" done. 1 filesystem lookups 115 db lookups and 1 db updates
    Info
      
    07/20/17 04:28
      Scanning for changed hard links on volume of "Q:\"...
    Info
      
    07/20/17 04:28
      Indexing of "***" done. 2 filesystem lookups 15 db lookups and 2 db updates
    Info
      
    07/20/17 04:28
      some.hostname: Loading file list...
    Info
      
    07/20/17 04:28
      some.hostname: Calculating file tree differences...
    Info
      
    07/20/17 04:28
      some.hostname: Calculating tree difference size...
    Info
      
    07/20/17 04:28
      some.hostname: Linking unchanged and loading new files...
    Info
      
    07/20/17 04:28
      Waiting for file transfers...
    Info
      
    07/20/17 04:28
      Waiting for file hashing and copying threads...
    Info
      
    07/20/17 04:28
      Saving file metadata...
    Info
      
    07/20/17 04:28
      Writing new file list...
    Info
      
    07/20/17 04:28
      All metadata was present
    Info
      
    07/20/17 04:28
      Transferred 39.9336 KB - Average speed: 28.072 KBit/s
    Info
      
    07/20/17 04:28
      Time taken for backing up client some.hostname: 8m 30s
    Info
      
    07/20/17 04:28
      Backup succeeded
2

As it turns out, the problem persists even when urbackupclientbackend is running with a service account that has read permissions to everything.

3

Someone please give some assistance with this.
I have no errors/warnings logged in urbackup and windows event log. VSS copies are successfully created and removed after the backup. When I start a console as the backup user and run recursive dir on the drives (see log above) it finds all the files. Yet the backup contains only empty folders with the exception of C:\

4

Bump…
I feel someone should really take a look at this, not just to solve my specific issue. This behavior can destroy someone’s data. The server treats the backup as successful but only stores empty directories, which means that if I trigger a restore, it will delete everything that was supposed to be in the backupo and replace it with an empty directory.

5

Finally found the issue… The exclude list that automatically got created client-side every time I reinstalled somehow excluded my “directories to back up”. Which is weird, as all entries in that list started with C:\ and I was trying to back up F:, U:\ etc.

6

I have the same problem - file backup looks like ok in web-admin(additional copyes 5Gb) and logs = ok,
howewer restore impossible, download as zip = 13 Kb with empty folders inside.
Locally on urbackup machine I see no files in file backups also.
So, some backups I found in disk images of partition(oh, good lack!), but not file backups.

Looks like wrong place I used for list of my backup path’s -
it was = in field “include path by masks”
should be = in field (last on form) “path by default”,
else that paths works like “exclude” (IMHO, tests needed)

more over, looks like we should use “add backup dirs” in client software(win) form
not in “settings”, but exact “add backup dir’s” form.
But, I’m mainly use hidden, no-face client and try to set all in web-face,
where is some mis-understanding, and translation “near-no-errors”

(now, on problem instance, path’s was listed in web-face and also on client “add dirs”
must be the same, because sync? IMHO, but… del that list from web-face, now all 3 bottom fields in file backups settings exclude, include by mask, include dirs is empty…
list on client is not the exact same… what’s wrong?
settings for all clients with (*) so not inherited, but also not copying from client to server, that’s interesting )))

I will some investigate this trouble on all my instances with different settings for
get exact same error and path to do it, and post news here

bad english, sorry.

7

I have the same problem with file backup on one of Windows clients:
Server is on Windows server, client is Windows 10.
It backs up only 5 default folders for each user in C:\Users (as in windows client settings/File backups/Include in backup). This path C:\Users has to be specified in “Add/Remove backup paths” in order for this c:\users backup to work.
The problem is that whatever i add to the list in “Add/Remove backup paths” - it gets never backed up. The path (folder) gets registered on the server, the folder names appear in the server web interface/backups and on the server file system. But they are EMPTY!!!
The backup status is OK for regular and incremental file backups. All additional folders are never backed up because they are always empty on the server.
Logs don’t show much, only general info like this:
Info
04/22/22 08:15
Indexing of “books” done. 237 filesystem lookups 0 db lookups and 0 db updates
Looks like the client sees some files, but they are never sent to the server, or excluded somehow.
What is the purpose of this client setting “Add/remove backup paths”, if it does not work?
How to make it work? Urbackup is almost unusable for windows without this function.