Standalone backup agent for Microsoft Windows servers and workstations (formerly Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE)
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erik_k
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Full Name: Erik Kaashoek
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Incorrectly restoring symbolic links as hard links

Post by erik_k »

During a file level restore of a file level backup symbolic links seem to be replaced with hard links.
How can you enforce symbolic links to be restored as symbolic links?

An example is the "C:\Documents and Settings" symbolic link, it points to the "C:\users" folder
During restore the mounted volume containing the to be restored data does contain the correct symbolic links but the "copy to" command does not recognize it is a symbolic link and creates a whole folder tree for "C:\Documents and Settings" instead of only creating a symbolic link file
HannesK
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Re: Incorrectly restoring symbolic links as hard links

Post by HannesK »

Hello,
looks like expected behavior. Copy to "c:\users\..." is the way to go.

"Copy to" is pretty similar to Windows explorer "copy & paste"... and with Windows explorer this also does not work the way you ask (or I misunderstood something, then please describe step by step what you did)

Best regards,
Hannes
erik_k
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Re: Incorrectly restoring symbolic links as hard links

Post by erik_k »

I understand what you say but restoring a backup becomes impossible with this behavior.

What I would like to happen is:
1: When you copy_to a folder the folder and all its data is copied.
2: When you copy_to a symlink the symlink is created in the "to" location with the same content as the symlink in the backup.

I know that above is not the behavior of windows copy & paste but for restoring data its the only logical behavior
What also needs to be done is to show in the VEEAM restore explorer window what items are symlinks.

Windows solves this problem by hiding the symlinks in the users root folder (such as "Application Data", "Coockies" and "Local settings") . But they are present and copied to the backup.

Keep in mind symlinks could be anywere in the many gigabytes being restored.
With the current behavior you have to compare the content and repair all the symlinks.
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