Understanding ZxBackup restore timespan

[Bittone]

Hello guys,
I'm now testing the 30-days trial of Zbackup 1.8.8 on Zimbra open 8.0.4, server is Ubuntu LTS 12.0.4.xx.
I'm using as Zbackup repoository an NFS mounted dir on a Synology NAS, the initializazion threw an error about the dir beeing not case sensitive, but I made tests and it's a false alarm (I can have two dirs like backup and Backup).
I made the mandatory full scan and after that I tried to restore an emal I deleted with the exact time and date and it failed (no emails undeleted).
Then I left the dates as they are presented by the interface and I got 600 undeleted emails with many emails from months ago.
What am I doing worng?
Thanks

Bittone

[d0s0n]

Hello guys,
I'm now testing the 30-days trial of ZxBackup 1.8.8 on Zimbra open 8.0.4, server is Ubuntu LTS 12.0.4.xx.
I'm using as Zbackup repoository an NFS mounted dir on a Synology NAS, the initializazion threw an error about the dir beeing not case sensitive, but I made tests and it's a false alarm (I can have two dirs like backup and Backup).

Hi Bittone,

it seems weird because the case-sensitive test consists in a very simple procedure:

• mkdir AA
• mkdir Aa
• touch AA/1
• touch Aa/2
• test the existence file AA/2 and Aa/1

If the procedure ends finding a file in a wrong directory the test fails! So, if your ZeXtras Backup Path is currently on a Case Insensitive filesystem you should take a look to our specific guide.

I made the mandatory full scan and after that I tried to restore an emal I deleted with the exact time and date and it failed (no emails undeleted).
Then I left the dates as they are presented by the interface and I got 600 undeleted emails with many emails from months ago.
What am I doing worng?
Thanks

Bittone

The first important thing is that all date settings in a restore operation have meaning only if the RealTimeScanner was enabled and operational during that time interval. While if you just initialized the backup path, ZxBackup did a FullScan followed by a SmartScan, so at the and of initialization, the backup path contains only 2 points in time of zimbra store data, those of the first fullscan and the last smartscan.
Another important note: it doesn't matter when you have received the deleted mail, but only when they were removed from the mailbox (obviously not just when it was moved to Trash).

Have a nice day.

D0s0n

[Bittone]

Hi D0S0n,
thanks for your kind answer.
I made a small screecast on the Zextras NFS-mounte fs showing your test operations carried out by me, juts to double check and they all went OK, so I don't know about Zextras Checks but it seems it was a alse alarm.

Thanks for the explaination of the dates, seems I completely missed the point, and, to be honest, I think I deserved a RTFM answer on this.

Bye

Alberto

[Trantor]

Hello Alberto.

Looking at this link, it might just be that the Synology behaves in a case-insensitive way when it come to storing files uploaded via NFS.
We are gearing up for the new release right now, so next week we'll try to provide you with a more detailed test to run.

Regards,
Trantor

[Bittone]

Hello Trantor,
I knew that page and in the box in the testing section it states that since 2.1 version (very old by now) NFS is case sensitive. So I'll go on considering the install script error as a false positive.
Thanks for your kind help

Alberto

[d0s0n]

Hi Alberto,

we made a little java test to verify all assertions about your filesystem.

In the attachment you can find the source file, please try the following commands:

• Unzip the attachment and put the FileSystemCaseTest.java in a folder owned by zimbra user and changedir to that path (e.g. /NAS/zimbra_owned_folder)
• Try to compile it as zimbra user to create the file FileSystemCaseTest.class for your java version:

  javac FileSystemCaseTest.java

• Try to exec as zimbra user with:
  

  zmjava FileSystemCaseTest /NAS/zimbra_owned_folder

• Try to exec as root user with:
  

  /opt/zimbra/java/bin/java FileSystemCaseTest /NAS/zimbra_owned_folder

Please post all the output (a copy&past will suffice) and feel free to change the source code to add some other test case

D0s0n

[Bittone]

Here is the result:

Checking case sensitiviness of path /opt/zextras/backup/. using folder names '.AA' '.Aa'
Removing old test directories
Creating test directoties
Directory /opt/zextras/backup/. is case sensitive
Checking case sensitiviness of path /opt/zextras/backup/. using folder names 'AA' 'Aa'
Removing old test directories
Creating test directoties
Directory /opt/zextras/backup/. is case sensitive

As you ca see the code desn't clean up the dirs:

ls -la
total 28
drwxr-x--- 7 zimbra zimbra 4096 Aug 15  2013 .
drwxrwxrwx 3 root   root   4096 Aug 15 10:03 ..
drwxr-x--- 2 zimbra zimbra 4096 Aug 15 10:04 .AA
drwxr-x--- 2 zimbra zimbra 4096 Aug 15 10:04 .Aa
drwxr-x--- 2 zimbra zimbra 4096 Aug 15 10:04 AA
drwxr-x--- 2 zimbra zimbra 4096 Aug 15 10:04 Aa
drwxr-x--- 5 zimbra zimbra 4096 Aug 15 10:03 zextras

The server has no system Java installed and I used the one shipped with Zimbra (1.7.0_21).
Since I'm no programmer I cannot help you with the code, sorry.

Thanks for your support.

Alberto

[d0s0n]

Hi Alberto,

I can confirm your backup path is Case Sensitive, but I don't understand the cause of the alarm because ZxBackup makes the same test...

Are you still able to reproduce the alarm? Can you try to set another backup path on the same device?

Thanx for your time!

D0s0n

[Bittone]

Hello d0s0n,
what about a complete re-install?
We are still testing the solution so that wouldn't be a problem.
I will use 1.8.9 on the same device.
Bye

Alberto