Exchange 2000 Full Backup Log Files Not Purging
cbtg2006
I've recently started a new job and have been given the task of fixing
the email backup. I discovered yesterday that the previous admin
(bless his cotton socks) had a vbscript that was deleting all files
older than 5 days from the transaction log folder for the storage
group.... ick! This has been disabled, but I now have to fix this
mess.
The problem we have is that BackupExec 9.1, despite being set to do a
full backup with reset archive bit has never registered a successful
backup in 2 years on the Exchange server. As a result the log files
have not been purged. I have completed a Full NTBackup of the Storage
Group but the log files have not been purged. I have tried this twice.
I have displayed the output of eseutil /mk E00.chk:
Microsoft(R) Exchange Server(TM) Database Utilities
Version 6.0
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation 1991-2000. All Rights Reserved.
Initiating FILE DUMP mode...
Checkpoint file: E00.chk
LastFullBackupCheckpoint: (0x0,0,0)
Checkpoint: (0x36694,1500,0)
FullBackup: (0x3668E,8,16)
FullBackup time: 03/07/2007 11:13:25 -- (My MANUAL NTBACKUP)
IncBackup: (0x0,0,0)
IncBackup time: 00/00/1900 00:00:00
Signature: Create time:05/05/2004 17:59:22 Rand:1072951
Computer:
Env
(CircLog,Session,Opentbl,VerPage,Cursors,LogBufs,LogFile,Buffers)
( off, 252, 12600, 1740, 12600, 128, 10240,
219726)
Operation completed successfully in 1.15 seconds.
The problem is I have 11.5Gb (and growing) of transaction logs, some
of which date back to 2005 - although these are few and far between,
the majority of log files form the last two years have been deleted
using the vbscript.
Has anyone got an ideas as to how I might fix this?! I don't want to
start deleteing log files... i know what this can do; however my
understanding of this tells me I could remove (as in move backup and
then delete) the log files previous to Checkpoint: (0x36694,1500,0) is
this correct?
Many thanks,
-Chris
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a@tleederbyshired.0.tc.0.m Lee Derbyshire [MVP]
news:1173268523.0...@8g2000cwh.googlegroups.com...
If the log files are not purged even after a successful backup, they
may have been orphaned. After the backup, it does not just delete all
the log files it can find, it will only delete the ones that it thinks
contain the transactions that it has just backed up. So, if log files
are not deleted at the right time, for some reason, they will never be
removed in the future. I would say that anything going back to 2005
is likely to remain there until you delete it. I would monitor the
contents of the folder, and see which new log files are being created.
Then make sure that these new ones do disappear after a backup.
Anything left, can probably be deleted. Another thing you can try is
to move the .edb files to a different location. Again, anything left
behind is unwanted.
Lee.
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cbtg2006
Thanks for your response.
Looking at the log files it doesn't appear that they are being deleted
by the backup at all; despite the databse being aware of the fact that
a Full Backup has taken place.
Last night I started the Veritas backup Exec 9.1 Job again in the hope
that with the Full NT Backup having registered on the database it
might work. After 13 hours it has backed up 570MB of the Bricklecvel
Mailbox backup.
Something is very wrong here....
Do you think I should move the log files previous to the last
committed file (not delete, just move!) to see if this helps..? I have
a funny feeling that this is not going to help.
Thanks again,
-Chris
On 7 Mar, 16:09, "Lee Derbyshire [MVP]" <email a@t leederbyshire d.0.t
c.0.m> wrote:
> "cbtg2006" <chrismbradf...@gmail.com> wrote in message
a@tleederbyshired.0.tc.0.m Lee Derbyshire [MVP]
Brick-level backups always take forever, and most people give up on
the eventually. It could be that the backup process doesn't have
permission to delete the .log files. I would try looking at the NTFS
permissions, and temporarily give the Everyone group Full Access on
the folder, to see if that helps. Now that you have done a full
backup, and the old log files have remained, they will never now be
deleted, so you need to keep looking at only the new log files each
time you try something.
Lee.
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"cbtg2006" <chrismb...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1173342414.5...@30g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
cbtg2006
After desperation we went with an incremental backup... this
processsed ALL log files and when finished purged them..... Hurrah!
I'm going to test a full backup later on today to make sure that the
files are purged... hopefully this will work now.
Thanks again for your help,
-Chris
On 8 Mar, 13:26, "Lee Derbyshire [MVP]" <email a@t leederbyshire d.0.t
c.0.m> wrote:
> Brick-level backups always take forever, and most people give up on
> the eventually. It could be that the backup process doesn't have
> permission to delete the .log files. I would try looking at the NTFS
> permissions, and temporarily give the Everyone group Full Access on
> the folder, to see if that helps. Now that you have done a full
> backup, and the old log files have remained, they will never now be
> deleted, so you need to keep looking at only the new log files each
> time you try something.
>
> Lee.
>
> --
> _______________________________________
>
> Outlook Web Access For PDA , OWA For WAPwww.owapda.com
> email a@t leederbyshire d.0.t c.0.m
> _______________________________________
>
a@tleederbyshired.0.tc.0.m Lee Derbyshire [MVP]
> Hi Lee,
>
> After desperation we went with an incremental backup... this
> processsed ALL log files and when finished purged them..... Hurrah!
>
> I'm going to test a full backup later on today to make sure that the
> files are purged... hopefully this will work now.
>
> Thanks again for your help,
>
> -Chris
So the incremental backup purged them, but the full backups didn't?
That seems odd.
cbtg2006
them...
Backup exec backup took 27 hours over the weekend.... a bit worrying.
Not sure what to do about that yet; we need the brick level backup to
work.
-Chris
On Mar 9, 2:38 pm, "Lee Derbyshire [MVP]" <email a@t leederbyshire d.
0.t c.0.m> wrote:
> "cbtg2006" <chrismbradf...@gmail.com> wrote in message
Susan
--
Susan Conkey [MVP]
"cbtg2006" <chrismb...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1173736739.6...@30g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
cbtg2006
Bricklevel backup has been completed.... madness...
The reason for the Bricklevel backup is simply fast restoration of
user mailboxes. We don't have a secondary server which we can use for
recovery purposes, so the bricklevel backup is our only viable
solution considering we're using Exchange 2000.
-Chris
On 12 Mar, 22:01, "Susan" <scon...@mgmmirage.nospam.com> wrote:
> 27 hours for how much data? and why do you want the brick-level backup?
>
> --
> Susan Conkey [MVP]
>
