topic Re: Disproportionate backup size of Alfresco in Alfresco Archive

Disproportionate backup size of Alfresco

ashokharnal — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 15:04:27 GMT

I have a feeling that when uploaded files from Alfresco (ver 3.4.d) are deleted, the complete effect of file deletionmay take sometime to stabilise even though the files instantaneously disappear from Share or Explorer.Backup of Alfresco continues to show heavy size, disproportionate to what it is h

Re: Disproportionate backup size of Alfresco

loftux — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 17:10:28 GMT

When you delete files, they first end up in a "waste bin". So you can recover them. It is unfortunately not available from Share, in Alfresco Explorer you can navigate to your profile and permanently delete them. Admin can delete for all users.
When deleted, they will be moved in your back end store from alf_data/contentstore to alf_data/contentstore.deleted around 4am (do not rememver exact time, around that hour) each day
contentstore.deleted you will have to manually empty, or delete files older thant x days. You can skip this folder in your backup if you want to.

So your observation is correct, backup size will grow over time if you do not delete items, first permanently in Alfresco Explorer, then from contentstore.deleted.

Re: Disproportionate backup size of Alfresco

ashokharnal — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 02:04:19 GMT

Dear Loftux,

Thanks. I was able to transfer files to contentstore.deleted. But does it mean that if I stop Alfresco, delete
all folders from contentstore.deleted, Alfresco should work normally?

Ashok Kumar Harnal

Re: Disproportionate backup size of Alfresco

loftux — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 06:10:16 GMT

Yes.
http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Content_Store_Configuration

One way to try this is to stop Alfresco, rename contentstore.deleted, start Alfresco. It should recreate contentstore.deleted.
It exists as an extra safety measure in case you would like to recover content that has been purged.
If you haven't checked this, it is good reading
http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Backup_and_Restore
It says to backup contentstore.deleted. And you can do so, but add some script to clean out older stuff from there. You could do something like
find /var/alfresco/alf_data/contentstore.deleted -mtime +30 -name '*.bin' |xargs rm
(havent tested the above, should work but take precautions)

Re: Disproportionate backup size of Alfresco

ashokharnal — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 00:33:30 GMT

Dear Loftux

Thanks for the script to delete older files from contentstore.deleted. I intend to put it in a regular cron job.

Ashok Kumar Harnal