Virtualmin Backup/Restore failure when Quotas not enabled

I have experienced significant problems with Virtualmin Backup/Restore when quotas are mismatched between the backup Virtualmin and the restoring Virtualmin.

The situation is that I am moving from one VPS (rosehosting.com) running Virtualmin GPL 3.73 to another VPS (virpus.com) running Virtualmin GPL 3.73. Both installations were completed using the install script. The rosehosting (backup) Virtualmin VPS does not have quotas enabled, and the virpus (restore) Virtualmin VPS does.

The issue also occurs going the reverse direction - from a system with quotas enabled to one without.

This bug renders the backup/restore capability of Virtualmin useless (and dangerous, because one believes one is "safe" if they have backups). A restore attempt always fail with the following message:

Restore failed : setquota: User [username] doesn't exist.

I also don't seem to have the ability to elect to NOT backup or restore quotas.

If you need any more information to help solve this issue just let me know.

Thanks!

Status: 
Active

Comments

Is is possible that quotas were disabled after virtualmin was installed, but it still thinks they are active?

Try going to System Settings -> Re-Check Config, to force re-checking of the status of quotas .. then re-trying the restore.

If that still fails, does the Unix user named in the error message actually exist?

Could be you are on to something...but I'm not sure what! Maybe you can tell me...

On Old VPS Server:

Disk Quotas (Before re-check) Filesystem Type Mounted From Status Action
/ UFS IDE device V partition 1 User and Group Quotas Inactive Enable Quotas

Re-check says: "Disk quotas have been disabled in the module configuration."

Disk Quotas show the same after the re-check.

On New VPS Server:

Disk Quotas (Before re-check) Filesystem ↓ Type Mounted From Status Action
/ (users) / (groups) Reiser Filesystem /dev/simfs User and Group Quotas Active Disable Quotas

Re-check says: "Disk quotas have been disabled in the module configuration."

After re-check, Disk Quotas still shown as enabled, even though according to the check they have been disabled.

I am trying another Backup/Restore and will post results after it completes.

Thanks.

Ok, let us know.

Where are you still seeing disk quotas shown as enabled?

Sorry to not be clear on where I (think) I am seeing quotas enabled.

Upon rechecking the server, it says, "Disk quotas have been disabled in the module configuration." However when I go to Webmin -> System -> Disk Quotas, in the "Status" field it reports "User and Group Quotas Active", and I see a link in the "Action" field that says, "Disable Quotas." I presumed (incorrectly?) that that means that quotas are enabled - or else Webmin/Virtualmin has somehow gotten confused, as the "recheck" said they were disabled and the "Disk Quotas" module seems to imply they are enabled.

As far as another backup/restore cycle, I got the same error (unable to create user) again after a complete backup and attempted restore. After MUCH mucking around, since the Virtualmin restore was complaining that the owner/user of my Virtual Servers didn't exist, I decided to create that user manually on the system command line, then tried the restore again, and finally got it to work.

Let me know if you need any more info from me to help resolve this issue.

Thanks.

Regarding quotas being disabled, this is set at System Settings -> Module Config -> Quota setup for domain and mail users? .. it should be set to "Yes".

Sorry about the confusion then...

"System Settings -> Module Config -> Quota setup for domain and mail users" was set to "No," which corresponds with the Re-check Config response of "Disk quotas have been disabled in the module configuration." So Virtualmin is consistent within itself as to whether quotas are on or off.

Returning to the original question/bug, then...does having this set to "Yes" on the server that created the backups, and "No" on the server that is restoring the backups cause the inability to restore and the error I mentioned above? Or is there something else going on?

Yes, having those mis-matched is likely the cause of the problem. It is a good idea to have the same quota settings on the old and new systems regardless, or else you won't be able to migrate quotas across ..

Might I suggest some sort of work-around or code upgrade in the future to accomodate mismatched quota backup/restores, as quotas aren't always under the virtualmin user's control?

For example, the Rose Hosting VPS plans do not have the ability to set/enable quotas because of the virtualization software they use for their VPS plans.

With VPS's becoming more prolific, this is a problem other Virtualmin users may run in to...and it will often occur at a critical time, like when you have to leave one host in a hurry and "think" you have a good backup of your system to transfer to your new host...only to find out that you can't restore your backups!

Thanks for the great work though!

  • Acorp

www.acorp.net

Virtualmin 3.76 contains code that should handle this situation when restoring..

I have this same issue. I've moved to a new VM which is actualy a clone of the original one but I don't have /home partition here only root. Quota is enabled but since there is no /home aprtition I stil get restore failed. Any help would be apreciated.