Backup fails if someone uploads during backup

bug
1 
[2017-06-07 18:12:36] Creating archive: asdf-2017-06-07-181158-v20170524182846.tar.gz
[2017-06-07 18:12:36] Making sure archive does not already exist...
[2017-06-07 18:12:36] Creating empty archive...
[2017-06-07 18:12:36] Archiving data dump...
[2017-06-07 18:12:36] Archiving uploads...
[2017-06-07 18:13:18] EXCEPTION: Failed to archive uploads.
tar: uploads/default/original/2X/c/c5df928d1883cc5f15d1dac6d95c0c0ae55f073e.jpeg: file changed as we read it
tar: uploads/default/original/2X/c: file changed as we read it
tar: uploads/default/original/2X: file changed as we read it
tar: uploads/default/original: file changed as we read it
tar: uploads/default: file changed as we read it

A site called “stack overflow” suggests
adding --warning=no-file-changed to the tar command.

Is it as simple as adding that switch here?

https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/lib/backup_restore/backuper.rb#L233

4 Likes
2

How can a user upload a file while the site is RO during the backup?

1 Like
3

I just know that it happened. :slight_smile:

4

I think read only mode only kicks in while the database is being dumped and is disabled before the backup is compressed (which captures the uploads).

5

I can’t do squat from the web interface while our backup is running. If it were a sidekiq job doing something then surely someone would have seen it by now.

6

That’s right. Read-only is only on while the database is backing up. Creating the tar file could take a long while.

It’s fairly improbable that an upload would happen in this window, but this site got 2.6M page views in the past 30 days, with 6.9K posts yesterday.

3 Likes
7

It looks like it to me.

https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/4907

5 Likes
8

If this looks good to you @mpalmer and @tgxworld please merge

2 Likes