Snapshotting the same data from 2 differents hosts

I’d like to snapshot a CIFS remote filesystem (called /mnt/DISCO_data), which is mounted on a Linux machine (called “rescue”).
The repository itself is stored on another CIFS remote filesystem.

That way, I can access and perform snapshots from “rescue”:
root@rescue:~# kopia repository connect
root@rescue:~# kopia snapshot list

root@rescue:/mnt/DISCO_data

  • 2023-10-27 10:38:44 CEST kbb257bb6ce1b3416d1bbf8ddfcc7b89c 4.7 TB drwxr-xr-x files:5465706 dirs:440330 (monthly-4)*
  • 2023-11-30 20:31:20 CET k5fe8fb729622aab3980bb40209563e83 4.7 TB drwxr-xr-x files:5543723 dirs:447448 (monthly-3)*
  • […]*
  • 2024-01-16 07:20:22 CET k7bc181e531bbb06208274e2989b779c9 4.9 TB drwxr-xr-x files:5602821 dirs:455391 (latest-1,hourly-1,daily-1,weekly-1,monthly-1,annual-1)*

The point is the rescue machine has hardware troubles. So

  • I set up a new Linux machine, called “zeta”
  • I mount both remote filesystems (the one to be backed-up, and the one holding the repository)
  • I try to perform a new snapshot.

root@zeta:~# kopia repository connect
Connected to repository.

root@zeta:~# kopia snapshot list
No snapshots found. Pass --all to show snapshots from all users/hosts.

root@zeta:~# kopia snapshot list --all

root@rescue:/mnt/DISCO_data

  • 2023-10-27 10:38:44 CEST kbb257bb6ce1b3416d1bbf8ddfcc7b89c 4.7 TB drwxr-xr-x files:5465706 dirs:440330 (monthly-4)*
  • 2023-11-30 20:31:20 CET k5fe8fb729622aab3980bb40209563e83 4.7 TB drwxr-xr-x files:5543723 dirs:447448 (monthly-3)*
  • […]*
  • 2024-01-16 07:20:22 CET k7bc181e531bbb06208274e2989b779c9 4.9 TB drwxr-xr-x files:5602821 dirs:455391 (latest-1,hourly-1,daily-1,weekly-1,monthly-1,annual-1)*

root@zeta:~# kopia snapshot create /mnt/DISCO_data
Snapshotting root@zeta:/mnt/DISCO_data …

  • 0 hashing, 1536 hashed (2.1 GB), 0 cached (0 B), uploaded 197 B, estimated 860.5 MB (244.3%) 0s left
    ^C
    Created partial snapshot with root k6d45f74a97a65e37c8781b46caf7d081 and ID 10c86e8a2e23573ff4f82dbd7e309569 in 24s

Kopia starts creating a whole new snapshot, from machine zeta.
So naively, I tried to include the fullname of the snapshot:

root@zeta:~# kopia snapshot create root@rescue:/mnt/DISCO_data
Snapshotting root@zeta:/root/root@rescue:/mnt/DISCO_data …
ERROR encountered 2 errors:
failed to prepare source: unable to get local filesystem entry: resolveSymlink: stat: lstat /root/root@rescue:/mnt/DISCO_data: no such file or directory

Is there a way to perform a backup of the same data from different machines ?

I understand this use-case is not very common, but VPN client limitations prevent snapshotting directly from the real data source.

Regards,
Nicolas

Hi @Nico_C,

Potentially the host name is different. That’s why you do not see the snapshots in the repo from zeta.you may need to override the host and user when connecting to the repo.

Cheers