Why is this server backing up?

[backupworker]

I have this server that has mysteriously started backing itself up on my Legato backup server. It is usually backed up at night, but now it just started backing up this afternoon. The group it is in is not started (there are no groups running right now), i checked the actual server itself, and there are no backups running on it, and there are no terminal server sessions running on it either.

Any ideas? Or is my backup server possessed?

 

[Chacalinc]

1. windows? unix?
crontab -l

2. there is an attribute in the client resource (don't remember the exact name) which tells NW: "backup this client every XX hours"... by default XX is 24, but you can change it to others values between 0 and 24. You can see this value looking the "hidden attributes".

Cheers.

 

[backupworker]

it is on windows 2000. if there was a setting like that, wouldn't the group icon turn into a clock though to indicate that it was performing a backup?

 

[Chacalinc]

I'm not sure, just a though... you could see it anyway, you will loose nothing.

- is the start time at the correct time? I guess yes.
- do you have some cron job with the "savegrp" or "savefs" command?
- what NW process are running right now? (with the backup process) some save? savefs? savegrp?
- is it possible to telnet to your box?

Cheers.

 

[605]

If no automatic backup (no group) is running, somebody or
something must have initiated a manual backup. Via RPC, this even could have been initiated by a remote person.

1. If index and bootstrap save set been created at that time, it must have been an automatic backup.

2. You may disable manual backups in the server resource.

3. Find out which command was used. Look at the log files.

4. Look whether your NW server client is also a menber of another group.

5. Look at your system time and time zone - they may have shifted. Also verify whether it syncronizes with the correct time server.

 

[605]

BTW - if the backup is just creating a bootstrap then this may have caused by another group. If the NW server's client is not a member of an active (enabled) group, this save set will be started when any group is run. This is a precaution - the server does not know when he will have the next chance to backup itself.

 

[backupworker]

the start time for the backup is 11PM. it kicked off at about 2PM yesterday and at the scheduled time last night as well. i don't know about cron jobs - i am on a windows platform so i'm not that familiar with unix. i didn't get to check what process was running at the time.

the only way i knew it was backing up was i saw it running on the Sessions portion under the Monitor tab in NWAdmin. I checked the logs and it has no record that a backup was performed at 2PM. and the client doesn't belong to any other groups either. time and timezone are correct too. what's weird is the client has a saveset of ALL but it was only backing up the D drive when i saw it yesterday.

 

[605]

This looks more like a manual backup which is started by a single save command. Such can only support one save set (D at a time. This would explain what has occured - the question is why?

Again, there are several possibilities:
- Somebody could start the process remotely.
- There is a calendar/timer running in the background which started the save process (from a remote site).

Unless you do no know what has triggered the backup, can't you just disable manual backups?