Re: Ghost cronjob
David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> writes:
> On Tue 04 May 2021 at 17:06:50 (+0200), Mart van de Wege wrote:
>> Sven Hartge writes:
>> > Mart van de Wege wrote:
>> >
>> >> Nope, not ephemeral at all, it's PID 1. Since I don't have timers
>> >> running this job, apparently there's a zombie process somewhere?
>> >
>> > PID 1 hints at a systemd.timer, even if you have dismissed this
>> > previously. Also the start time of just after midnight hints at this.
>> >
>> > And when I look at the current btrbk package in Sid/Testing I do indeed
>> > see it ships a timer in /usr/lib/systtemd/
>> >
>> > So, there is your answer then.
>>
>> Well whaddayaknow. I hadn't checked the system timers under
>> /usr/lib/systemd/
>>
>> And that is the bastard running the ghost job.
>>
>> Surely packaging a system timer file like that should not be done? It
>> should be at the discretion of the admin to create one if they want to
>> run btrbk on a schedule.
>
> I think this has been discussed in the past, and that installing a
> package is generally seen as meaning that you want it to run: Debian
> therefore tries to supply a reasonable and secure configuration.
>
But that's not applicable in this case. btrbk can be run standalone or
from a cronjob/timer, but the exact time someone wants to run their
backups, or even if they want them run periodically at all, is not a
decision you can make for them.
Of course an argument can be made that without edits to the default
btrbk.conf file btrbk won't run anyway, so configuring the timer is part
of configuring your backup strategy. I still think that supplying a
system timer is wrong here.
> But I can't help wondering what was the result of both systemd *and*
> your cron job running btrbk at the same time. Do you have backups of
> the logs?
>
I have backups. What happened is that for about 1.5 months I ran double
backups. Thankfully these are incremental snapshots, so not much
diskspace is lost on my server.
Regards,
Mart
--
"We will need a longer wall when the revolution comes."
--- AJS, quoting an uncertain source.
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