Incremental backup fails with an error message ''Provide a valid previous backup directory'' on Red Hat Satellite 6

Solution Verified - Updated

Environment

  • Red Hat Satellite 6

Issue

  • While running incremental backup of the Red Hat Satellite server, it fails with error Provide a valid previous backup directoryas displayed below:
# satellite-maintain backup online --incremental <path to incremental backup directory>  <path to full backup directory>
 
Prepare backup Directory:
Creating backup folder <path to full backup directory>/satellite-backup-2022-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx
                                                                      [FAIL]
 <path to incremental backup directory>/*.snar files unavailable. Provide a valid previous backup directory
Scenario [Backup] failed.

The following steps ended up in failing state:
 
  [backup-prepare-directory]

Resolution

  • Ensure that the full path of the directory containing the full backup is being mentioned correctly after the --incremental flag while taking the incremental backup.

    # satellite-maintain backup online --incremental <path to full backup directory> <path to incremental backup directory>
Starting backup: 2022-xx-xx xx:xx:xx +xxx
Running preparation steps required to run the next scenarios
Done with backup: 2022-xx-xx xx:xx:xx +xxx
**** BACKUP Complete, contents can be found in: <path to incremental backup directory>/satellite-backup-2022-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx ****

  • For more information about the step-by-step guidance to take incremental backup, please visit the Backing Up Satellite Server and Capsule Server guide.

For more KB articles/solutions related to Red Hat Satellite 6.x backup issues, please refer to the Consolidated Troubleshooting Article for Red Hat Satellite 6.x backup-related Issues

Root Cause

  • The command arguments for flag --incremental was not used properly or the path of the full backup directory was incorrectly specified.
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