Hey Guys,
I am looking for a way to backup a windows server & exchange database + logs so that windows then will clear the log files after.
I enabled vss snapshots, but after the backup ran, Window’s is not clearing the logs.
From what I read, when a snapshot is successfully made, windows then automatically clears the logs. So I am unsure if I am missing something?
I’m not sure this is really a restic question. By itself, restic just backs up files but does not communicate anything to other services like Exchange. As a sidenote, backing up databases is usually not done by just backing up the database files and I hear Exchange is a specially delicate beast so you might research some more how to do it properly. After all you want to be able to restore if time comes.
I think you need to go back to what you read when you read about this, and reevaluate it. It has nothing to do with restic, so what you read is about something else 
You’re thinking VSS snapshots, not Restic snapshots. I’m not sure whether the VSS snapshot Restic makes (if you tell it to) would trigger this behavior from VSS or not. Are you using VSS snapshots? --use-fs-snapshot
I think it needs to specifically use the
MS Exchange VSS Writer to trigger that behavior, and I don’t think Restic does that by default.
Perhaps -o vss.provider (specifies VSS provider used for snapshotting) will be of use? See more info here: Backing up — restic 0.16.5-dev documentation
Interesting! I wasn’t aware of that. Sounds… complicated 
You are spot on @akrabu but when I adjust (adding the vss.provider), I see this in the error logs on windows:
The Microsoft Exchange Replication service VSS Writer (Instance c1bc83fc-768d-45b5-8ad9-428d7fba23ae) failed with error 80070015 when checking volume dependencies in preparation for backup.
The Microsoft Exchange Replication service VSS Writer (Instance c1bc83fc-768d-45b5-8ad9-428d7fba23ae) failed with error 80070015 when preparing for snapshot.
The Microsoft Exchange Replication service VSS Writer (Instance c1bc83fc-768d-45b5-8ad9-428d7fba23ae) failed with error 80070015 when preparing for snapshot.
after which I can see the following entries:
The Microsoft Exchange VSS Writer instance c1bc83fc-768d-45b5-8ad9-428d7fba23ae has successfully frozen the databases.
The Microsoft Exchange VSS Writer instance c1bc83fc-768d-45b5-8ad9-428d7fba23ae has successfully thawed the databases.
The Microsoft Exchange Replication service VSS Writer (Instance c1bc83fc-768d-45b5-8ad9-428d7fba23ae) has successfully processed the post-snapshot event.
So I think we’re on the right track. but for some reason the vss writer isn’t doing what it’s supposed to?
Can you give me a printout from “vssadmin list writers” please?
The errors looks like it actually recovered, and can be caused simply by a timing issue with Exchange such as under-resourced or waiting for Exchange to finish writing out before the snapshot commences.
Are you actually getting the backup with Restic, or is it completely failing?