retropds.log causing slow backups

[jeffmazur]

Using Retrospect Remote 6.0.204 on a Mac OS 10.3.9 server to back up mostly OS 10.4.8 clients (approx 30) over GigE.

 

Over the last year, I have found that incremental backups are taking longer and longer to complete. I start the backup at 1:00 AM and they used to finish by 5:00 but now I come in at 9:00 and it's still going! One thing I noticed is that even when a computer has not been used for a day, the backup still shows almost 2GB being transferred. This used to be just a small number of "maintenance files" that the OS generates but upon further inspection I found that each machine had a large (2GB) file: /private/var/log/retropds.log. Looking into this file reveals mostly an endless stream of :

 

1166182897: ServWait: received msg DScn

1166182898: ServWait: received msg DScn

1166182898: ServWait: received msg DScn

1166182898: ServWait: received msg DScn

1166182898: ServWait: received msg DScn

1166182898: ServWait: received msg DScn

 

entries. What is this file? Why is it so large? Can I delete it or will it just replace itself again as a 2GB file?

[rhwalker]

Quote:

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What is this file? Why is it so large? Can I delete it or will it just replace itself again as a 2GB file?

 

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It's Retrospect's log file. It's large because it has a lot of data that has been appended to it. You can delete it, and it will keep growing again. You might delete it periodically. If you want to keep it but not back it up, you could add a selector item to not back up that file.

 

Here's the KB article for the log file on Mac OS X:

KB article: retropds.log - Mac OS X client

 

Here's the KB article for the log file on Mac Classic Client:

KB article: RetroClient.log - Client 5.1

 

At some point I believe the "feature" in the client that allowed the file to grow unbounded was fixed, so, if you update your Retrospect clients to current version, that problem should be fixed. Here's how it looks on a client that's been running about a year and a half:

Code:

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rhwimac:~ rhwalker$ ls -l /private/var/log/retropds.log

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 1835678 Dec 14 19:17 /private/var/log/retropds.log

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Not too bad, under 2 MB. See the KB article for how to delete (turn Retro client off, delete, turn client back on).

 

You might want to update to the current version of Retrospect 6.1 and its clients. The update is free.

 

Russ

[CallMeDave]

Quote:

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At some point I believe the "feature" in the client that allowed the file to grow unbounded was fixed

 

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Yep; on October 12, 2005:

 

 

http://kb.dantz.com/article.asp?article=8119&p=2

[jeffmazur]

Thanks Guys. I did upgrade to 6.1 (which I had avoided because I didn't want it to deal with ACL's etc.). Turned off the ACL modification checking and after the first time it ran all of the retropds.log files returned to something reasonable.