Account files not backed-up
or "Why weren't my files backed up?"/export/adams/1/fbloggs/.incoming-mail NOT backed up
max file size of 1048576 bytes exceeded
limit set by system default
Read the manual entry for `buff'
for information on controlling file selection
If you still have trouble configuring `buff'
or cannot get particular files backed up
come and seek help
There may be more than one file listed as not backed up.This indicates that the nightly incremental backups have not backed-up the listed files due to limits on how much can be backed up each night. The incremental backups are described on this page. You should read the page now if you have not done so before.
The program buff selects files to be backed-up. If it is not backing up the files you want you may need to reconfigure it by creating a file called .backup in your home directory. Buff will not back up files due to file size limits or due to a total treemax limit.
File size limits
If the message says that max file size of ... bytes exceeded it is telling you is that an individual file is too big to be included in the nightly incremental backups. It will still be included in the monthly full dumps.Make the file smaller
A basic way to fix this is to make the file smaller. You can remove or compress it (see Cleaning up Files) if it's a file you don't use often. If the file has to be uncompressed, such as your mail Inbox file, you will need to think about how to make it smaller. For most accounts the Inbox file is called .incoming-mail and the other mail Folders are files in the mail/ directory. For mail files you can move mail to other smaller folders or just delete them from the larger folder.Ignore the file size limit
You can configure buff to ignore the default file size limit on individual files. To configure buff, you will need a .backup file in the directory where such large files exist, or in your home directory. For example, if you want to ignore the file size of your Inbox mail file, in your .backup include:filemax none .incoming-mailDon't backup some files
You can decide that certain files will not be backed-up in incremental backups. Either you accept the nightly warning emails that the backup system sends or you can configure buff to ignore certain files:exclude *.jpg
or directories:
exclude tmp/Note that the monthly Full Dump backups will back up all files, even the ones you exclude from nightly backups.
Prioritise Backups
You can set certain files to be backed up before the rest:first .incoming-mail
Or, after all other recently changed files:
last .incoming-mailtreemax limit
It is more likely you will get a message like this:max directory size of 62914560 bytes for /export/adams/1/fbloggs exceededThe treemax limit often confuses people. What happens with the incremental backups is they take a list of every file you modified that day, then start backing them up one by one, counting the bytes, until they reach the treemax limit. The total file size, not the size of the changes, is counted. This means that if you have one very big file, and you make a tiny change to it, it will get included in your nightly backup and take up most of the treemax limit, squeezing out other files that you may have extensively changed. This tends to happen to people who never clean out their old mails. New mail gets added every day so the file gets included in the incremental backups, but most of the file is old and has already been backed up many times - and this old stuff is preventing newer files from being backed up.
To fix a treemax limit problem you may need to do more work. You cannot configure buff to ignore the treemax limit. You will need to use the techniques described above for File Size limits to alter how your treemax limit is reached. You can stop large files that change frequently from being backed up or change how data is stored in those files so they are not as big a part of your treemax limit.