BackWPup tries to get the size of directories that are excluded from backup

  • Resolved Hanno

    (@bsoftde)


    4 months ago

    Today there was a message saying
    “ERROR: SplFileInfo::getSize(): stat failed for /data/web/www.xyz.de/vi”
    Consequently, backup was cancelled.
    The point is, that directory “vi” had been mounted via cifs from another server years ago, and it had been excluded from backup right from the beginning, when it still existed. That server had been shut down yesterday completely, unfortunately with that mounted directory still in place (ok, my fault) … But I would expect BackWPup to leave alone excluded directories entirely, and not to regardlessly try some stats on them.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Plugin Support happyAnt

    (@duongcuong96)

    Hi @bsoftde,

    Thank you for reporting this issue. I tried a few times to reproduce it on my end, but without success.

    I tried setting the folder permissions so BWU can’t access that folder, and excluding that folder from the backup list. The backup job is still working fine, and I’m not seeing any errors.

    Could you please provide the steps to reproduce the error? Also, could you try again with the latest version of BWU?

    Thank you!

    Thread Starter Hanno

    (@bsoftde)

    Thank you very much for your reply.

    I must admit, this was a rather weird situation that I am neither able nor willing to reproduce because it has to do with a server misconfiguration. Let me try to explain:

    It’s all about a directory on a Linux server that was connected to another local server via CIFS. So, the directory had initially been created empty, and then redirected (mount -t cifs). As long as the remote server was in its place, everything was ok. But then that server was replaced by another machine, and the CIFS connection was no longer needed. As the remote machine had changed, that connection became invalid. However, the empty directory was still in its place. If you did an ‘ls’ command on a higher directory level to show the dir structure, it would show up. If you would try to get any details on that specific dir from the command line, it would simply appear as empty. However, the routine SplFileInfo::getSize() that is being used by your software, seems to behave somewhat differently, and it brings forward an error (sorry for the German error messages):

    [19-Jul-2024 02:02:55] Komprimiere Dateien als TarGz. Bitte habe einen Moment Geduld.
    [19-Jul-2024 02:03:36] FEHLER: SplFileInfo::getSize(): stat failed for /data/web/www.xyz.de/vi
    [19-Jul-2024 02:03:36] 2. Versuche, Backup-Archiv zu erstellen …
    [19-Jul-2024 02:04:17] FEHLER: SplFileInfo::getSize(): stat failed for /data/web/www.xyz.de/vi
    [19-Jul-2024 02:04:17] 3. Versuche, Backup-Archiv zu erstellen …
    [19-Jul-2024 02:04:58] FEHLER: SplFileInfo::getSize(): stat failed for /data/web/www.xyz.de/vi
    [19-Jul-2024 02:04:58] FEHLER: Schritt abgebrochen: zu viele Versuche!

    But this is not the point. I was wondering why your software tries to collect information *at all* on directories which it is configured not to take care of. If it tries to get the size of such a directory, how can I be sure that it does not collect other (more sensitive) data?

    Plugin Support happyAnt

    (@duongcuong96)

    Hi @bsoftde,

    Thank you for the detailed report, we are checking this case!

    No, we dont collect user data, since BackWPUP is opensource (https://github.com/wp-media/backwpup) you can easily see how the plugin works!

    We also GDPR compliance, as you can learn more here:

    https://backwpup.com/docs/backwpup-backups-and-gdpr/

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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