Backup Anomalies

Help! (Home for newbies)
#1

Hello,

I tried to set up a reciprocal scheduled backup between two machines.

I have two machines, ns1 and ns2. Both of them are set under virtualmin->Backup and Restore->Scheduled Backups to backup all servers and subservers and all "features and settings" to the reciprocal server. Both are set to email me on failure of the backup.

Interestingly, I noticed the following oddity:

On ns2, there is a file called "virtualmin.tar.gz". Thus, this file is part of a backup made by ns1. I received no failure email from ns1, but the filesize of this file is 0 bytes. Is this a problem?

Additionally:

On ns1, there is NO file called "virtualmin.tar.gz". Thus, the backup made by ns2 failed. I received the expected failure email from ns2. The critical portion states:

Dumping MySQL database theDatabase…
… dump failed! mysqldump: Got error: 1049: Unknown database ‘theDatabase’ when selecting the database

When I installed the domain with the problem, I accepted the default db name. I later installed my own db called "someOtherDatabase" and must have deleted "theDatabase". I need to a) tell the backup to quit looking for "theDatabase" and b) tell the backup to start looking for "someOtherDatabase".

How might this be done?

Thanks,
Tony

#2
On ns2, there is a file called "virtualmin.tar.gz". Thus, this file is part of a backup made by ns1. I received no failure email from ns1, but the filesize of this file is 0 bytes. Is this a problem?

This is the “Virtualmin settings to also backup” section of the Backup form. It shouldn’t be empty if you have any of the boxes checked (generally, if you’re backing up Virtualmin meta-data, you’re going to want it all). I’m guessing ns2 doesn’t have this option enabled at all.

If you do have anything set to be backed up, and it isn’t being backed up, it’s a bug, and you should file a ticket in the tracker about it.

When I installed the domain with the problem, I accepted the default db name. I later installed my own db called "someOtherDatabase" and must have deleted "theDatabase". I need to a) tell the backup to quit looking for "theDatabase" and b) tell the backup to start looking for "someOtherDatabase".

Virtualmin ought to be smarter than that, probably, with regard to freaking out about a deleted database. (Though, I guess, in most circumstances the administrator would want to know if a database that’s supposed to exist is missing! So, maybe this isn’t actually a bad thing.)

But, it should definitely pickup any database that is owned by the user. You may need to associate it with the user in Virtualmin. Select the virtual server you’d like to own the database, and click Edit Databases. Click on the Import Databases tab, and select the new database. Click Import now. This should make the new database part of the virtual server backup.

I’m not sure how to make Virtualmin stop believing in the existence of the deleted database. Is it listed in the Edit Databases page? If it isn’t, but the backup is still trying to deal with it, that’s a bug and you should file a ticket about it.

#3

Importing the user appears to have fixed the database death problem.

However, now BOTH servers have a zero size file called virtualmin.tar.gz

All the options in "Virtualmin settings to also backup" are selected to be backed up though… I suppose I should file that bug ticket?

#4

As you can see,

So, it’s unlikely that the filesize should properly be zero. I thought perhaps it was arbitrarily smaller than the block size of the disk, but, um… no… there’s imply nothing in the archive.

#5