File access problems

Support
#1

Hi,
My backups are working, however I’m getting lots of errors like these:

2017-05-22 21:02:27.032 WARN SKIP_DIRECTORY Subdirecotry Users/Donnie/ cannot be listed
2017-05-22 21:02:27.032 WARN SKIP_DIRECTORY Subdirecotry Users/Drew/ cannot be listed
2017-05-22 21:02:27.032 WARN SKIP_DIRECTORY Subdirecotry Users/George/ cannot be listed
2017-05-22 21:02:27.032 WARN SKIP_DIRECTORY Subdirecotry Users/Joe/ cannot be listed
2017-05-22 21:02:27.032 WARN SKIP_DIRECTORY Subdirecotry Users/U/ cannot be listed

I realise that this is a file system permissions error. I’m backing up a Windows Server. The administrator account I’m logged in won’t have access to these folders.

Is there a way around this or do I have to give the account I’m using access to all folders?

David

UI Permissions Issue
#2

I think you’ll need to either let each user back up their folders or grant the administrator account the access to user folders.

#3

Ok, although that’s not an ideal solution for a server. I want to be able to backup all the data on the server without having to manually change permissions on user home folders, etc.

Windows has a security group called “Backup Operators” which is described as giving members access to all files regardless of the access permissions for back up purposes.

I made a new user - assigned it to the security groups “Administrators” and “Backup Operators” and then assigned that user to the Duplicacy service. However it made no difference.

So I then added the user I’ve been testing with, which is already an administrator, to the Backup Operators group - however these folders are still skipped.

There’s got to be a way to do this on a server? Other backup software manages it.

David

#4

I’m looking into this issue. Which Windows server version are you running?

#5

It’s Windows Server Essentials 2016 I’ve been trying it out with.

Examples of the log reports are:

2017-05-24 01:07:19.301 WARN LIST_FAILURE Failed to list subdirectory: open S:\ServerFolders/File History Backups/Administrator: Access is denied.
2017-05-24 01:07:19.301 WARN LIST_FAILURE Failed to list subdirectory: open S:\ServerFolders/File History Backups/alan: Access is denied.
2017-05-24 01:07:25.068 WARN SKIP_DIRECTORY Subdirecotry File History Backups/Administrator/ cannot be listed
2017-05-24 01:07:25.068 WARN SKIP_DIRECTORY Subdirecotry Users/Drew/ cannot be listed

David

#6

The problem is that the only account with true system-wide access is “Local System” it has no restrictions anywhere.

The problem as I see it is that the Duplicacy GUI app ran on the desktop runs as the logged in user, and for backups thats not where you want to be.

You need to be “Local System” and the best way to get that is as a service. The Duplicacy GUI has a service built-in which is great but the GUI needs to be modified so the service does all the work while running the GUI on the desktop is merely an interface for the service via some form of IPC

#7

I can confirm that the Duplicacy service run under the Local System account (which is the default) can back up folders like c:\Users\user that the Duplicacy application does not have access to.

To configure the Duplicacy service, run the Duplicacy application as administrator and then exit the application (make sure the tray icon is gone). The Duplicacy application when run as administrator pauses the service on start, and resumes it on exit.

The “Backup Operators” group doesn’t work because it requires a different set of Windows API functions to read/write files in order to circumvent the default security setting. However, Duplicacy is written in Go, so we are limited by Go in what we can do in the low level.

#8

Ok, so I’ve tried that. But I still get the exact same list of file access errors.

As an aside the Shadow copy option is never available regardless of how I start the GUI.

David

#9

How did you set up the service? Did you select ‘Install for all users’ and then ‘install Duplicacy service’ during the installation?

To enable the Shadow Copy option you need to run Duplicacy as administrator. If you did run Duplicacy as administrator and still saw the option disabled, you didn’t exit the previous instance – Duplicacy is designed to be a single instance application.

#10

Hi,
Ok, my problem was I wasn’t exiting the tray icon before trying to re-run as Administrator. I’ve done that now and this is the first time I’ve seen the shadow copy option available :slight_smile:

Hoping this will solve the file permission messages also!

David

#11

Hi,
It looks like I’m getting a full backup now - just to clarify, I need exit the GUI but leave the Tray Icon. I initially was closing the tray icon too but that seemed to stop everything and the back backup never even started.

David