Snapshot and replication questions

[echelon5]

I'm still confused with the new snapshot and replication system. I've been at it for a few days and I hope someone can shed some light on it. I'm trying this in 3 FN 11.3-U1 machines.

1. When selecting snapshots, there's a Legacy field. Does it matter? Can I just rename a Snapshot Task and all will be good?
2. I don't understand the replication schedule:

• I've daily, weekly and yearly snapshot tasks for a dataset
• I want the task to run nightly between 00:00 and 06:00 and replicate everything that's available
• with "run automatically selected", I understand that it'll replicate as soon as a snapshot is taken. But I don't want that, I want a Schedule.
• the schedule option appears only when I deselect and reselect "Run automatically". Edit: this is mentioned in the docs but didn't notice ("Selecting a periodic snapshot schedule removes the Schedule field.")
• but then when I set the schedule it says "Push replication can't be bound to periodic snapshot task and have schedule at the same time" - why?
• when I select "Snapshot replication Schedule", from the helper I understand it will match the snapshot task. So, if I select daily, it won't push the monthly/yearly ones
• with some default settings I also encountered this issue

3. The WAITING status for a replication task. What's it waiting for?

 

[Adrian]

I believe that 3. can mean a snapshot has been taken triggering replication which shows WAITING while a previous replication for that snapshot name is still running.

 

[echelon5]

I believe that 3. can mean a snapshot has been taken triggering replication which shows WAITING while a previous replication for that snapshot name is still running.

Huh. Maybe...

I'm adding
4. Where are the snapshots? FreeNAS C receives snapshots from A and B successfuly. But on C I see just some recent snaps.

 

[echelon5]

I believe that 3. can mean a snapshot has been taken triggering replication which shows WAITING while a previous replication for that snapshot name is still running.

It seems waiting means... it's waiting for a previous replication task to finish. I thought the new replication system allowed multiple concurrent replication tasks, but I think it allows them for different destination FNses.

 

[echelon5]

Regarding 2.

I might have "cracked the code".

• I've created a new replication task for an existing dataset with existing hourly snapshot tasks
• I've deselected "Run Automatically" and set "Snapshot Replication Schedule" to Daily
• the replication task ran successfuly and it sent nothing
• I've deselected the "Periodic Snapshot Task" that was bound by default and I used "Also Include Naming Schema" where I used auto-%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M
• it's running now and actually sending data;

Update:

I had a thought. Let's say I have 3 Snapshot Tasks, Hourly, daily, and monthly, all named auto-%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M and a replication task with "Also Include Naming Schema". I want all of them on the destination dataset. Does hourly delete the others? Update: yes it does.

Update 2:

From what I can tell, the surest way to properly send snapshots and retain them, is to use different naming schemas for Snapshot Tasks, then add one by one in the "Also Include Naming Schema" field. Update: further tests indicate that this is the way.

I'd appreciate input from others. So, for example I'd like to send daily/weekly/monthly snapshots during a specific window (i.e. 00:00-06am). I can use the above method, which I find not very elegant. Then, should I add another Snapshot Task, I must manually add it to the Replication Task.

 

[DrLove73]

I understand post is almost 3 years old.
Proper way to separate snapshots is to have different naming schemes for them. Enough is to add "-1y", "-2w" or similar to the end to show how long the snepshot is supposed to exist from creation date.