ARCserve 2000 Basics

[usuallyconfused]

I am new to ARCServe and am trying to get my head round an existing installation. If I go to the Job Status window, it shows two jobs, one a backup and one a pruning. (Q.1 What is this pruning doing and is it system or user created?). The backup job is shown as Incomplete and if I look at the Activity log it shows that a number of directories or files were skipped (Q.2 How can I find out what these directories or files were and also why they were skipped?).
If I go to the Database Manager, it shows that each Job is made up of 4 Sessions, each one containing a selection of files. (Q.3 What are these sessions and how are they created?).
I have downloaded some manuals from the CA web site, but they seem a bit patchy on the above issues.

 

[GSC]

Hi,
A.1 Pruning is self explanatory: It prunes (removes)old records from your database, This is user created.
A.2 You have already found the Activity log and this is where you have all the answers to what files and directories were skipped and also why they were skipped.
A.3 Lets say that your server has a C-,D- and an F-drive. Each of those drives will become a session on your backup. So Session 1 can be your C-Drive and Session 2 your D-Drive and so on. If you try to do a "Restore" do it by session and there you will see what data your Session 1 for instance contains.
Hope this helps.
Regards,
GSC

 

[usuallyconfused]

Thanks.

As far as the skipped files are concerned, I had not checked the Job Log tab at the bottom. This explains the 'Unable to find directory' which I can see from the job description is looking for a deleted directory. However, I am not sure about the skipped files, which it says 'Unable to find file'.

The whole point of daily backups is that files are added or deleted and I cannot see why it should be looking for a particular file - directory yes, but why a file? The files it cannot find are all in the c:\winnt\system32\ directory.

 

[GSC]

No problems,
You know neither can I but CA has there own way of creating their product and that is how they do it. You, I and everybody else here at the forum should consider our selves lucky that we have crappy products to support...
ARCserve 2000 is one of the better though, but there will always be bugs and stupid programmers (no offence).
Cheers
GSC

 

[eireaine]

I had a lot of problems with ARCServe being unable to open particular files which turned out to be due to a user on the network going home leaving his pc logged out but with the offending files open.

 

[Lou0686]

Hi,

It sounds to me as if your job is configured to do a selective backup. This is certain directories/files are stagged for backup instead of the full volume/drive. If this is the case, Arcerve is trying to backup files and/or directories that were once there and are now gone. Also, with selective backups new files that are added will not be backed up. Once again, if this is the case, the proper way to skip files from being backed up is to select the full volume/drive and create filters to bypass certain files/directories.

 

[usuallyconfused]

Ah, Lou0686, that sounds interesting, thanks. If I go to the Job Status window, right click on the job and select Modify, I can see the backup selection. (Is this the only way to see the selected directories?)

If I navigate to the c:\winnt\system32 directory, I can see that the files that are listed as 'Unable to find...' in the job log are shown with a solid green square against them, as are most of the other files in the directory. I say most, because there are a few that are not.

The files that the job log says it cannot find do not appear in My Computer, so it is correct about that. But it may be that if you select a directory, then it automatically selects all of the files within it, but is prepared for files to come and go within it. If, however, you now de-select a file, then the whole directory becomes a 'selective' backup, to use your phrase, and it will specifically look for all of the files and not allow for some coming or going.

Can anyone confirm this?

 

[Lou0686]

Hi,

1. (Is this the only way to see the selected directories?)

That's the only way that I know of.

2. Correct, the files that show the solid green squares are the files that were selected to be backed up.

3. Your assumtion is correct. If a directory shows a half colored green box, new files created in that directory will not be backed up. Also, Arcserve will keep look for files that were selected and are no longer there.

Good Luck
Lou