My backups aren't working because the Backups system can't mount my images -- why is that?
Linode
Linode Staff
My backups were working fine until I randomly received this notice:
Hello,
Your backups are currently failing because the Linode Backup Service is
unable to mount your images. This is likely due to an incompatibility
between your disk images and our service. Please see the "Caveats"
section of http://www.linode.com/backups/ for additional information.
Specifically:
"The backup system must be able to mount your disk images on the host. If
you've used fdisk on your images to create partitions, or created
encrypted volumes, or LVM, or done anything other than use our deployment
or disk image creation tools, we won't be able to back up the data. The
backup system operates on files, not at the block level."
If you plan on keeping your current configuration, you'll want to remove
the Linode Backup Service from your Linode. We can do this for you through
the ticket system as soon as you confirm. If your current configuration
is temporary, feel free to disregard this message; your backups will
automatically resume once your images return to a compatible state.
Alternatively, we can mark the specific incompatible image to be ignored
by the service. Simply let us know and we'll make that change for you. If
you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to ask. Please
let us know if you'd like the service removed from your account.
Regards,
Linode Backup Team
I haven't changed anything recently, so what's going on?
1 Reply
Chris_H
Linode Staff
A great question! The first thing that you'll want to make sure of, per the aforementioned error message, is that all of your Linode's disks are compatible with the Backups system. If you've created partitions on your disk, encrypted your disk, or created a disk with a RAW filesystem, for example, your disks will not be able to be backed up. If you'd like to keep any such disk, but would still like for us to back up your data, Linode Support can exclude certain disks from your backups. If you'd like to arrange something like this, feel free to submit a ticket indicating which disk you'd like to exclude from your backups going forward.
If you've ensured that your disks are compatible with the Backups service but are still receiving this error, this may indicate an issue with your disk(s) filesystem -- that being the case, a good first step to take would be to perform a filesystem check which will check your filesystem for any corruption.
All you'll need to do is boot your Linode into Rescue Mode, enter e2fsck -f /dev/sda into the terminal, and then reboot the server normally. You will have to use the LISH console to work on this while in Rescue Mode.
If you've gone through both of the steps listed above and are still at a loss, feel free to submit a ticket explaining the steps you've already taken -- there could be a chance that this in, in fact, a separate issue entirely (such as a filecount issue) that's masquerading as a filesystem error.