VBRCatalog Index Folders

[perjonsson1960]

Folks,

Do folders under "C:\VBRCatalog\Index\Machines\" never get cleaned?
Shouldn't the number of folders for a certain VM be about the same as the number of restore points?
I have randomly checked a few VMs in one of our jobs. The number of restore points is 18, but the number of folders in the VMs' index folders is 35.
How does this work? Will the number of folders continue to grow until all the free space is gone, or will it clean itself at some point?
The VBRCatalog is nearing 100 GB in size here... Is there a cleanup utility?

Edit: It just hit me: Is there one index folder for each volume in the VM? If there are two volumes, like C: and D:, are there two folders per restore point for that VM? That would explain the number of index folders...

Kind regards,
PJ

[Mildur]

Hi PerJohnsson

The VBRCatalog is nearing 100 GB in size here... Is there a cleanup utility?

You can control the retained index period by the job retention and Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager:
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=120

Setting in Enterprise Manager: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=120

Required disk space can be calculated with the formula in our help center:
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... e-indexing

Best,
Fabian

[perjonsson1960]

Hello,

I am trying to understand the policy for retaining indexing data. Here...

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=120

...you are talking about a retention setting that can be set in Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager. What is that? I may have heard of it, but I haven't given it any attention at all, and I don't know how to use it. Is it included in the license for B&R Enterprise Plus? If so, how do I install it, and where? Should it be installed in the backup server, or in a client PC? Or is it web based?

That retention setting, that can be changed in Enterprise Manager, what is the default value? Is it 40 days? Could that value be changed by adding or changing a registry value in the backup server?

Bottom line: Our "C:\VBRCatalog\index\Machines" folder is 140 GB. I want to reduce the space needed for indexing, if possible without reducing the number of restore points in the jobs. Right now, we have for example a backup job that has a 14 day retention, and 14 restore points. But under the index folder there are 38 folders for each VM, one folder for each day. I would like that to be 14 folders for each VM, since there are 14 restore points.

Kind regards,
PJ

[Mildur]

Hello PJ

Yes, Enterprise manager is included in Enterprise Plus. You can configure the retention here: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=120

Please also note, Enterprise Manager will not allow you to set a lower retention than 1 month. But we plan to introduce a new reg key in one of our upcoming versions to overwrite the guest file index behavior.
The new reg key will allow you to set a retention of x days. The reg key will be beneficial for customers who only use the index for our "file system activity analysis" feature in v12.1.

Enterprise manager has additional options such as Password Loss Protection. This feature will allow you to access encrypted backups in case you lost your encryption password. Therefore we recommend to install Enterprise Manager on a dedicated machines and not directly on the backup server. You can find more information in our help center: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=120

Best,
Fabian

[perjonsson1960]

Installing Enterprise Manager seems much too complicated for me... When I read about the prerequisites, Server side, Client side, my head is spinning, and it seems much more complicated to install Enterprise Manager than B&R itself...

We have a file server cluster with approx. 11 million files. Those two machines take up about 90 GB of the 140 GB in the C:\VBRCatalog\index\Machines folder. If I uncheck the "Enable guest file system indexing and malware detection" in the backup job, will all those indexing folders and files go away? I don't really need indexing enabled in order to restore individual files and folders, right? Will the Backup Browser run slower without indexing, or doesn't it matter?

[Mildur]

Hi

You should disable disable indexing in the backup job if you don't need it. It can be disabled for the entire job or for selected machines: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=120

After disabling it in the job, I believe you need to purge older indexes by yourself or wait for the index retention to be over.

Will the Backup Browser run slower without indexing, or doesn't it matter?

Backup browser (Veeam Explorer) doesn't use index files.

Best,
Fabain

[spiritie]

This cleanup doesn't work properly. I've just cleaned up 100GB index from VM's back from 2020 until 2023, folders starting with 2021_, 2022_ and 2023_ and so on.

The Enterprise Manager's session is set to 6 months (backups with GFS retention is also 6 months for everything)

Also had to cleanup a lot on the VBR itself.

Running latest 12.1.2 on both VBR and EM.

[perjonsson1960]

Thank you!
I have disabled guest file system indexing in the jobs that had it activated now. We'll see what happens in the VBRCatalog, if anything, after the next backup.
I see that the Malware Detection Inline Scan is also storing information in the VMs' index folders, so I guess that those will continue to be created.

[Mildur]

Yes, Inline Scan will continue to work.
It's independent from the guest file indexing. Even if the same folder is used.


@spiritie
Please investigate with our customer support team if index files doesn't get cleaned after 6 months.

Best,
Fabian