skipped excluded and open excluded

mvfid · 2021-03-12 11:28:33

Hello,

I just ran my first backup, it was of a running windows VM. I will paste here some relevant lines from the output
(esxi user = root, synology user = admin)

command line: ./xsibackup --backup "VMs(xyz)" admin@a.b.c.d:22:/volume1/esxi-backups/

||| (c)XSIBackup-DC 1.4.3.13: Backup & Replication Software |||
System Information: ESXi, Kernel 6 Major 0 Minor 0 Patch 0
xsibackup is licensed
Remote system: Linux
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PID: 677403, Running job as: admin
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LZJB compression has been enabled
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Block size is 1.00 MB (1048576 bytes)
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Remote xsibackup binary found at: /bin/xsibackup

Performing --backup action
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(c)XSIBackup-DC setting repository at /volume1/esxi-backups
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.xsitools file created at: admin@a.b.c.d:22:/volume1/esxi-backups/.xsitools
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Item number 1 in this job

Virtual Machine Name: xyz
Creating snapshot VM : xyz (powered on)
*** Snapshot was successfully created ***
Virtual Machine: xyz
Backup start date: 2021-03-12T10:09:42
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2021-03-12 10:09:42 | Backing up 26 files, total size is 52.46 GB
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NUMBER FILE SIZE PROGRESS

following are the files transferred and the following are of interest, that is the ones that are marked excluded.

xyz-ae0ee284.vswp [open excluded]
vmx-xyz-2920211076-1.vswp [open excluded]
xyz.vmx.lck [skipped excluded]
xyz-000001-delta.vmdk [skipped excluded]
xyz-000001.vmdk [skipped excluded]
*** Snapshot was removed ***
Item backup completed without errors
Differential blocks were added to the .blocklog database
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Final checksum: 27167242484 bytes were sent and confirmed to have been written remotely
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Removed host <tmp> dir OK
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Removed prog <tmp> dir OK
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Unlocked backup OK
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Removed PID OK
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Why these files were excluded?

I don't have a test VM to play around with so I used a live one; I should probably make some but am strapped for time for the next couple weeks, I'd rather get the backups working.

So another thing that comes to mind: given the VM is running and the snapshot and swap files seems to have been skipped, what will happen if I need to restore? Will it restore to the same running state? or will it be broken?

Thank you

admin · 2021-03-12 11:38:55

You have two type of exclussions there:

1 - open excluded: this are open files that can't be copied due to that they are being accessed by the host. They are not part of the backup, they aren't needed and that line is jus informative. Maybe we should simply hide those lines to avoid confusion, but then some users would wonder why those files are being skipped.

2 - skipped excluded: this are files that are skipped by the backup process. They are mainly the files that compound the current snapshot the VM is running on, namely: the backup snapshot. The backup snapshot files can't be copied, because those are the files that the VM is using to store the new blocks of data produced by the VM during the backup. They are later commited to disk once the backup is over.

Of course the VM will be restored to the state it was when the backup snapshot was taken. Depending on the (c)ESXi version and the number of previous snapshots present, you will be able to produce different types of backups: with previous snapshots, without them. That is a subject for a different post though.

mvfid · 2021-03-12 11:41:30

I think just documenting these in the manual is ok. I only posted this because there was nothing in the manual around this behavior and I also was not able to find any discussions on the subject.

Thank you.

admin · 2021-03-12 11:51:13

You are probably right, we are trying to make the manual as concise and practical as possible, many users don't even read it.

We will inlclude this kind of information in an appendix once we have reached a final stable phase at the end of branch 1.5 (which is about to be launched). Right now the evolution of the software is very fast and some things as: whether this information should be printed out or not is still under discussion and may be subject to change.

It does not affect your backups or restores in any way though.

mvfid · 2021-03-12 11:58:05

Right, that sounds fair. Thank you.

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#1 2021-03-12 11:28:33

skipped excluded and open excluded

#2 2021-03-12 11:38:55

Re: skipped excluded and open excluded

#3 2021-03-12 11:41:30

Re: skipped excluded and open excluded

#4 2021-03-12 11:51:13

Re: skipped excluded and open excluded

#5 2021-03-12 11:58:05

Re: skipped excluded and open excluded

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