Knowledge Base

On an attempt to do a partition backup Acronis product calls xfs_freeze to snapshot the XFS partition

This article applies to:

• Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Advanced Server (Agent for Linux)
• Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Server for Linux (Standalone)
• Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Advanced Server - Virtual Edition (Agent for Linux)
• Acronis True Image Echo Server for Linux
• Acronis True Image Echo Enterprise Server (Linux Agent)
• Acronis True Image 9.1 Server for Linux
• Acronis True Image 9.1 Enterprise Server (Linux Agent)

Symptoms

1. You are trying to back up an XFS partition;
2. The backup process hangs. The system turns unresponsive.

Cause

There is an application running that mmaps a file in a directory on the backed up XFS partition. To back up this partition Acronis product calls the standard XFS function - xfs_freeze - which fails if there is a file mmapped.

Solution

As a workaround, make the application mmap on a non-XFS partition (e.g. on an ext3 partition).

More information

The issue is related to the Linux distribution kernel you use, but not to Acronis software itself. To check this you can run the following command:

# xfs_freeze -f /mount_point

[mount_point] is the partition you want to back up.

If the system freezes after this command, we can recommend you to contact its kernel developers with the detailed description of the issue, your hardware details and installed kernel.