Folder permission problem on Windows Server

Support
#1

Hi,
I’m using Duplicacy Web-UI version on a Windows 2016 server system. It works great, but I have an issue getting it to backup folders which have restricted permissions.
Specifically it’s the user “Redirected Folder” folders which are causing a problem… the log (included below) reports that it can’t access them.

The folders have permissions which only permit the user to which they belong access.

The Duplicacy service runs as “Local System”, which I understood would have full disk access regardless of permission settings.
I’ve also tried making a new user - adding the user to the “Backup Operators” Windows security group and changing the service to use that instead - but I still get the same result. (The “Backup Operators” group is supposed to have access to all files)
Finally I tried adding my own user account to the Backup Operators group to see if that would help - but again the files can’t be accessed.

Any thoughts on how I could resolve this? Ideally I DON’T want to have to assign additional permissions to the folders as I don’t really want an administrator user to have access by default.

Thanks,
David

SAMPLE LOG FILE:

Running backup command from C:\Users\ac_admin/.duplicacy-web/repositories/localhost/0 to back up W:/ServerFolders
Options: [-log backup -storage ACStorage -stats]
2019-08-30 00:13:27.149 INFO REPOSITORY_SET Repository set to W:/ServerFolders
2019-08-30 00:13:27.159 INFO STORAGE_SET Storage set to b2://xxxxxxxxxxxxx
2019-08-30 00:13:56.081 INFO BACKUP_START Last backup at revision 4398 found
2019-08-30 00:13:56.081 INFO BACKUP_INDEXING Indexing W:\ServerFolders
2019-08-30 00:13:56.081 INFO SNAPSHOT_FILTER Parsing filter file \\?\C:\Users\ac_admin\.duplicacy-web\repositories\localhost\0\.duplicacy\filters
2019-08-30 00:13:56.081 INFO SNAPSHOT_FILTER Loaded 2 include/exclude pattern(s)
2019-08-30 00:13:57.555 WARN LIST_FAILURE Failed to list subdirectory: open \\?\W:\ServerFolders\Folder Redirection\Danielle\Contacts: Access is denied.
2019-08-30 00:13:57.555 WARN LIST_FAILURE Failed to list subdirectory: open \\?\W:\ServerFolders\Folder Redirection\Danielle\Desktop: Access is denied.
2019-08-30 00:13:57.555 WARN LIST_FAILURE Failed to list subdirectory: open \\?\W:\ServerFolders\Folder Redirection\Danielle\Documents: Access is denied.
2019-08-30 00:13:57.555 WARN LIST_FAILURE Failed to list subdirectory: open \\?\W:\ServerFolders\Folder Redirection\Danielle\Downloads: Access is denied.
2019-08-30 00:13:57.555 WARN LIST_FAILURE Failed to list subdirectory: open \\?\W:\ServerFolders\Folder Redirection\Danielle\Favorites: Access is denied.
2019-08-30 00:13:57.555 WARN LIST_FAILURE Failed to list subdirectory: open \\?\W:\ServerFolders\Folder Redirection\Danielle\Links: Access is denied.
2019-08-30 00:13:57.555 WARN LIST_FAILURE Failed to list subdirectory: open \\?\W:\ServerFolders\Folder Redirection\Danielle\Music: Access is denied.
2019-08-30 00:13:57.555 WARN LIST_FAILURE Failed to list subdirectory: open \\?\W:\ServerFolders\Folder Redirection\Danielle\Pictures: Access is denied.
2019-08-30 00:13:57.559 WARN LIST_FAILURE Failed to list subdirectory: open \\?\W:\ServerFolders\Folder Redirection\Danielle\SavedGames: Access is denied.
2019-08-30 00:13:57.559 WARN LIST_FAILURE Failed to list subdirectory: open \\?\W:\ServerFolders\Folder Redirection\Danielle\Searches: Access is denied.
2019-08-30 00:13:57.559 WARN LIST_FAILURE Failed to list subdirectory: open \\?\W:\ServerFolders\Folder Redirection\Emma\Contacts: Access is denied.
2019-08-30 00:13:57.559 WARN LIST_FAILURE Failed to list subdirectory: open \\?\W:\ServerFolders\Folder Redirection\Emma\Desktop: Access is denied.
#2

Did you try running the service using the user account that can access those folders?

#3

This is the reason I’m still using the legacy Duplicacy GUI on some server systems, because indeed these Folder Redirections shares are normally locked down to only the user and the System accounts…

Duplicacy would therefore need to run as System.

The Web Edition doesn’t yet have a service mode, unless you’re using a third-party tool to run Duplicacy as a service?

1 Like
#4

Perhaps I’m mistaken - the server I was looking at previously had the legacy version of Duplicacy. So the service is perhaps leftover from that? I didn’t realise that.

#5

Not very practical though because the server has such folders for around 20 users - I don’t especially have to even want to know the passwords for these users nor for the logged in user to even have access to them.

#6

I know you say you don’t want to allow administrators to access the Folder Redirections but there is a clean way to go about it…

Though instead of giving permissions to a particular administrator, I guess you could use this method to assign the Backup Operators security group to a special account, then adding that group to the folders. Then again, just using System does the same job.

However, I don’t know if that’s a good idea given that the Web Edition has a tray icon and, I said before, doesn’t run as a service - you have to keep a logged-in desktop session for it to run.

There’s two issues here - permissions and lack of service mode. Duplicacy Web Edition will apparently get a service mode but until then, the legacy GUI does work for me in backing up Folder Redirections (since the service already runs as System).

1 Like
#7

Hi Droolio,
Thanks for your suggestions and information. All my systems which have the “web” version of Duplicacy perviously had the old version too - when looking at the services list I have mistakenly assumed the service I found related to the Web edition whereas you’ve now clarified that it’s just left-behind from the previous version.
I think I may revert to the older version for now!

#8

Hi,
Is there a roadmap/timescale for when the Web Edition will be able to run as a service? Having spent some considerable time switching most of my backup clients over to the web version I’m now going to have to switch them back to the legacy one so I can take proper backups of user folder redirects. Unless of course an updated Web edition that can do this is imminent?