©XSIBackup-Pro Classic: the --host argument and process delegation.

Please note that this post is relative to old deprecated software ©XSIBackup-Classic. Some facts herein contained may still be applicable to more recent versions though.

For new instalations please use new ©XSIBackup which is far more advanced than ©XSIBackup-Classic.

The --host option is very popular among ©XSIBackup-Pro Classic users, it allows to execute a backup job to any remote linked (--link-srv) server. This is very convenient when you want to create complex backup topologies that extend throughout a number of servers.

Nevertheless we have found that there's still some obscurity surrounding this command. Although from a user perspective, it may seem natural to believe that backupid=01 will launch backupId=02 when finished, this is not true.

# Backup 00
/vmfs/volumes/datastore1/xsibackup-dir/xsibackup backupId=00 --time="Mon 02:00|Fri 02:00" \
--backup-point="/vmfs/volumes/backup3" --backup-type=custom --backup-vms="WDES07" \
--mail-to=daniel@33hops.com --use-smtp=1 --on-success="backupid->01" --on-error="backupid->01"

# Backup 01
/vmfs/volumes/datastore1/xsibackup-dir/xsibackup backupId=01 --host=192.168.33.33 \
--backup-point="/vmfs/volumes/NAS01" --backup-type=custom \
--backup-vms="LINUX001" --mail-to=you@yourdomain.com --use-smtp=1 \
--on-success="backupid->02" --on-error="backupid->02"

# Backup 02
/vmfs/volumes/datastore1/xsibackup-dir/xsibackup backupId=02 \
--backup-point="/vmfs/volumes/NAS01" --backup-type=running \
--mail-to=you@yourdomain.com --use-smtp=1

When backupid=00 finishes, it will call backupid=01, that's clear, but backupid=01 will be executed in host 192.168.33.33. It will literally be a process running at host 192.168.33.33, thus when it finishes, it will look for a backup job named backupId=02 at the 192.168.33.33 host's crontab, and not the crontab from where it was originally launched.

Understanding how remote backups are executed and how the processes must be chained is vital to design more complex backup topologies

Daniel J. García Fidalgo
33HOPS