2 backup crons - necessary?

[sahostking]

Hi guys,

Been reviewing our servers today and 2 of them seem to have the following crons:

0 2 * * * /usr/local/cpanel/bin/backup

and

0 1 * * * /usr/local/cpanel/scripts/cpbackup


Is this a duplication?

 

[cPanelMichael]

Hello

The "/usr/local/cpanel/bin/backup" script is for the new backup system and the "/usr/local/cpanel/scripts/cpbackup" script is for the legacy backup system. You are welcome to delete the legacy backup script cron job if you do not use legacy backups. Note that both existing backup scripts running on a cron job will not cause additional load. The backup scripts only generate actual backup archives when backups are enabled.

Thank you.

 

[XenomediaBV]

@cPanelMichael. Actually not entirely true. Due to the crontab legacy entry there is actually a pid stored in "/var/cpanel/backuprunning". The legacy backup script will finish quick because legacy is disabled. But in some cases the pid entry in "/var/cpanel/backuprunning" is not cleaned up properly (it happened on one of our machines).

This gives the error message:

"warn [backup] The other backup type is running as evidenced by the existence of:  /var/cpanel/backuprunning"

By default the crontab generated by cPanel contains:

0 1 * * * /usr/local/cpanel/scripts/cpbackup
0 2 * * * /usr/local/cpanel/bin/backup

As you can see the legacy backup is attempted first. Therefore, the above failure will block the new backup entirely because the new version checks if the old version might be running through "/var/cpanel/backuprunning".

So if legacy backup is not used it is even better to remove the cron entry for legacy period. To do it entirely right set the new backup script to start at the same time the legacy did in case there is limited time for a nightly run.

0 1 * * * /usr/local/cpanel/bin/backup

After fixing this the new backup script is running properly again.