how to make Veeam Linux VM Backup exclude /mnt

[shuji]

Hi there,

In the last couple days, I found the Linux VM backup also included in the /mnt, which didn't happen before.
I knew that from the size of the nightly backup, because the change in /mnt is very large every night, not the other directories.

Why did this happen now, not before?
How can I make veeam to exclude the /mnt from VM Backup?

Thank you
Ryan

[PTide]

Hi,

Please use "File Exclusions" option in "Guest Processing" settings of the job.

Why did this happen now, not before?

Do you mount anything to /mnt and, if you do, how often do you umount it? Also has the overall size of your backup changed a lot?

Thank you.

[shuji]

Hi PTide,

I mount it couple weeks ago to store last 3 days database backup, and I have never unmounted it.
I remember the VM nightly backup size went down since I moved the database backup to /mnt instead of storing them locally.
In the last couple days, the VM nightly backup size went up to the size that is similar to when I haven't moved the database backup to /mnt.

The size of the VM backup went up from 200 MB to 8 GB, which is about the size of two nightly database backup.

If I don't have a solution today, I am going to suspend the nightly database backup tonight to see whether the problem is from /mnt or not.

Thank you
Ryan

[jmmarton]

You will need to unmount it. One suggestion, if you're going to routinely have this database backup location mounted but you don't want it to be backed up by Veeam is to use pre-freeze/post-thaw scripts that unmount the locations when the backup job starts and then re-mount them afterward.

Note that the file exclusions feature that was previously mentioned is only for Windows servers using NTFS, so it won't apply to your Linux VM. Unmounting either manually or in an automated fashion with scripts is your own solution to exclude it from the backup.

Joe

[PTide]

I mount it couple weeks ago to store last 3 days database backup, and I have never unmounted it.

The mentioned storage that you mounted to /mnt is a physical device, not a virtual drive, is that correct? If so, then I suspect that the following occurred:

1. The mentioned device has never been included into backup due to its physical nature - VMware was not aware of it thus a snapshot could not be taken.

2. At some day that device has been accidentaly unmounted for some reason, and you did not notice that, so everything that was written to /mnt directory went to your local hard drive, instead of going to the device.

3. Since your system drive is virtual, it's been snapshoted thus your db backup files were included into Veeam backup.

Note that the file exclusions feature that was previously mentioned is only for Windows servers using NTFS

That's correct, my mistake, sorry for confusion.

if you're going to routinely have this database backup location mounted but you don't want it to be backed up by Veeam is to use pre-freeze/post-thaw scripts that unmount the locations when the backup job starts and then re-mount them afterward.

Umounting the filesystem that is on a virtual disk on a Guest OS level will not exclude the location from backup.

Thank you.

[shuji]

Thanks for the reply.

@jmmarthon: I was thinking about the mount/unmount as well. Thanks

@PTide: The /mnt/ has only one folder "/mnt/backup", which is a shared folder from QNAP with NFS host access. And I did reboot the QNAP for firmware update.
After I check these two folder "/mnt/backup" from local machine and "backup" from QNAP, their contents are different. Great insight PTide. Thank you

I have fixed this mounting problem by clearing the content and remount the folder.
Thank you for all the help
Ryan