1223 - Warning: Target referenced by symlink is not selected for backup – Redstor

Symptom

From v19.5, our ESE Agent will log a warning when a symlink is selected for backup, but its target file is not. For example: "Warning: The target ‘C:\ProgramData’ referenced by symlink ‘C:\Users\All Users’ is not selected for backup".

Cause

This is intended behaviour to prevent accidental backup exclusions.

Optional workaround

To avoid seeing a warning message with every backup, you can exclude these symlinks. To do this:

Stop the Redstor Pro ESE service.
Open the a5backup.properties file.
Add the following:
```
symlink.warning.exclusions=path1,path2
```
where path1,path2 are the symlinks, not the target files. (See note below)
Save the file.
Start the ESE Agent service again.

For example:

The following warnings are seen in a Linux ESE Agent:

WARN : 11:09:08 The target '/proc/self/mounts' referenced by symlink '/etc/mtab' is not selected for backup
WARN : 11:09:08 The target '/run/cups/printcap' referenced by symlink '/etc/printcap' is not selected for backup
WARN : 11:09:08 The target '/run/systemd/resolve/stub-resolv.conf' referenced by symlink '/etc/resolv.conf' is not selected for backup

To avoid getting these warnings, excluding the following symlinks:

symlink.warning.exclusions=/etc/mtab,/etc/printcap,/etc/resolv.conf

You can also simply exclude the following:

  symlink.warning.exclusions=/etc

Or, to effectively disable all symlink warnings, exclude the following:

symlink.warning.exclusions=/

Quotation marks around the paths are optional, so "/etc/mtab","/etc/printap","/etc/resolv.conf" will also work.

Note:

Colon (:) and backslash (\) characters must always be escaped with a backslash (\).
e.g.: "C\:\\Users\\All Users"

Symptom

Cause

Optional workaround

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