Resolved Limit the amount of user backups created in "/var/lib/psa/dumps" ?

[HHawk]

I tried searching for a solution for this, however I cannot seem to find one.

Let me explain something first; we received a warning of Nagios that one of our servers was running out of space.
At first I couldn't see the issue, not that many clients and also nothing out of the ordinary towards website, database and emailaccounts related to the hosted accounts on the server.

But after investigating it a bit better, I noticed a ton of backups in the folder "/var/lib/psa/dumps". Apparently customers can create an unlimited amount of backups (in numbers and size) here. This results in the server running out of diskspace.

Is there a solution for this? I want to be able to give the customers a backup solution on the server, but not at the cost of risking the server being filled up again completely. Maybe I am overlooking something?

I thought I had a smart idea, to backup it to the same FTP accounts a the hosted account, however that's not allowed, because I get the following message: "Using the local Plesk's FTP server as a remote storage is prohibited. Please specify a remote location."

Is there a different solution of workaround for this? The best option would be a limit for the amount of backups. But I don't think it exists within Plesk?

 

[Bitpalast]

Did you limit the number of full backups that a client can do?

 

[HHawk]

Yes, I did that yesterday, however they still can add a ton of incremental updates?
But maybe it will be better, will keep a track of things.

 

[Bitpalast]

Yes, they can do that. But the disk space used by increments is only a small percentage of a full backup, and normally, in a rotation scheme, after n days, a new full backup will be created. When you offer the possibility to store backups locally, you must offer enough disk space, too. If your host system cannot offer enough disk space, you should disable the option to store backups locally. Further, when you include local backups that customers create in the total disk space usage calculation, you can limit the total amount of disk space that each customer can use automatically. When you are overselling / overbooking disk space it is not the customer's fault anyway if disk space of the machine is exhausted.

 

[HHawk]

I am a hosting provider lol. I want to limit our customers from abusing the backup location /var/lib/psa/dumps. I would have preferred that we, as hosting providers, could set a limit and location for the customers backup. Like within their own hostingaccount. This options should have been available years ago. I saw several Plesk ideas about this, but was never followed up.

And please refrain yourself with comments like "When you are overselling / overbooking disk space it is not the customer's fault anyway if disk space of the machine is exhausted." You clearly have no idea about our business and I find your comment very insulting! And FYI: this server only had 20 customers and has a raid 5 setup with 300 GB SAS disks. So plenty of space, but because of the crappy backups we experienced issues.

But thank you for your friendly assumptions.

 

[Bitpalast]

My intention was not to insult you in any way. I was only laying out all options that you have to cope with the situation, and the situation must be caused by overselling space. Otherwise it would not be possible that the disk space is exhausted, if all customer accounts stay within their disk space limits. It is your decision how you wish to configure your system. There are certain limits to what you can do.

 

[HHawk]

The backups created in the /var/lib/psa/dumps are not calculated into the customer's hosting package and/or space available to them. This has nothing to do with overselling.

 

[Bitpalast]

 

[HHawk]

Thank you Peter.

I never seen that setting before! I checked a few of our servers and all seem to have that enabled, except (you have guessed it) the server which was giving the problems!
Apparently this was switched off by someone....

Thank you for pointing this out. Now this issue has been resolved.

//small update

This means I can set the amount of backups higher, right?
It will be limited anyways by their account space, correct?

 

[Bitpalast]

This means I can set the amount of backups higher, right?
It will be limited anyways by their account space, correct?

Yes, but in that case watch out for automatic account deactivation. There will always be some customers who don't watch their backups grow and will likely complain when their account is auto-deactivated if they exceed their allotment. It is difficult to predict whether it is better to allow overuse and only let the system notify you so that you can address the issue to your customers or whether to disallow overuse and auto-deactivate if a customer exceeds his/her allotment.

 

[HHawk]

Thank you for the detailed explanation. Highly appreciated!