Loses all backups when disk is full

[Tero Karvinen]

Binary package hint: backuppc

Backuppc sometimes loses data when disk is full.

This is what I did:
0) Had two full backups and many incremental backups of localhost, using Dapper with latest updates.
1) Modified localhost.cf settings to include a broader set of directories to backup. Made some other modifications to localhost.cf too.
2) Run full backup
Backing up was stopped when disk was full. "backup failed (Tar exited with error 512 () status)"

What should happen: I should be able to continue when I have made some space on the disk.

What actually happens (the bug): Looking trough web interface, all previous backups have been lost. Some files are still on the disk, but they have checksums as names and their contents are compressed.
As an added bonus, restarting backuppc crashes without a decent explanation.
$ sudo /etc/init.d/backuppc restart
 * Restarting backuppc...
couldn't do /var/lib/backuppc/log/status.pl: at /usr/share/backuppc/bin/BackupPC line 116.

Backuppc never showed a single warning that the disk is full.

[Lee Connell (lee-a-connell)]

This has happened in the SAME exact manner to me. :(

[Matthew Woerly (nattgew)]

Changing to Confirmed since someone has confirmed this.

[Mantas Kriaučiūnas (mantas)]

This bug should be forwarded to upstream but I can't find BackupPC bug tracking system on http://sourceforge.net/projects/backuppc :(

[Nick Webb (webbn)]

I just hit it in Dapper too :(. I don't see any other references out there on the web, would be nice to know how to recover from this. I wonder if this is somehow linked to an ubuntu package issue since no other backuppc users are complaining other than ubuntu?

I guess I should upgrade to Hardy, but besides this, everything works great as is.

[Lee Connell (lee-a-connell)]

Anything on this? It has been a while since this was first reported. Does anyone know if this has been reported upstream yet?

[Lee Connell (lee-a-connell)]

Every sys admin should be monitoring their own disk space and get alerts for it, but unfortunately the damage has already been done once you get an alert. An end user could potentially save a 10GB file in their personal folder and backuppc will grab that file which could potentially put you over the estimated disk space you had originally setup for the backup.

[Lee Connell (lee-a-connell)]

Its a shame I can't edit my comments. Also this happens in debian as well, so it's not just ubuntu.

[Tero Karvinen (karvinen+launchpad)]

It seems that this is not the only serious data loss problem with backuppc.

For example, last time I checked backuppc "Claims success when backup fails" (bug #67497). This bug was probably never fixed, I just did not have time for it because I concluded that I can't use backuppc for my backups.

I hope that the problems get fixed, or at least users get informed of these serious data loss bugs. Current situation could bring users a feeling of false security.

[Lee Connell (lee-a-connell)]

What do you use for backup software now?

[Mark Walker (cypher-ciscosystems)]

However a little research indicates that at least the behaviour that triggers this bug was apparently fixed sometime after 3.0.0beta3. I wish they would see the merit in using a Bug Tracker.

See this post on backuppc-users here -> http://<email address hidden>/msg08713.html

I am working to reproduce this behaviour with 3.0.1 in Karmic.

Damn my server having too much space!

[Allison Randal (allison)]

We're at 3.2.0 in Oneiric. Is there any indication that this bug still exists?

[Phillip Susi (psusi)]

Closing this bug due to lack of input for over a year.