Change of proxmox-backup-client output makes cron annoying

[Bubbagump210]

It appears somewhere between 2.2.1-1 and 2.2.4-1 the output formatting changed. Specifically previously running a cron with

proxmox-backup-client> /dev/null

gave no output to cron. Now cron is picking up the output of proxmox-backup-client as it appears it shows as an error and/or not going to stdout. Is there any documentation on this? Was this intentional? It's an issue now as I can't suppress successful backups even using a tool like Cronic which makes running proxmox-backup-client spammy/annoying. Is there a way to suppress output like a --quiet option?

proxmox-backup-client help backup

doesn't give any hints.

 

[Hannes Laimer]

Hey,

it is now controlled by the PBS_LOG environment variable, so PBS_LOG=error proxmox-backup-client .... Also described here [1], but you're right the help command should probably also contain that information. In general, you can redirect both stdout and stderr with command > /dev/null 2>&1.

[1] https://pbs.proxmox.com/docs/command-syntax.html

 

[Bubbagump210]

Are there descriptions as to how each log level behaves? Ideally in my case there would only be output for errors so would I use “error”? I don’t want to suppress all output with > /dev/null 2>&1 as I want an alert if a job fails.

 

[Hannes Laimer]

For a message to be shown it has to be at least as 'severe' as the log level. So if you set the log level to warn everything that is a warning or worse is shown(warnings and errors). In the description, they are ordered by severity(a > b = a is more severe than b), so:
error > warn > info > debug > trace
off disables logging completely.

 

[Bubbagump210]

Got it. So if I set to warn or error, successful jobs should not have output.

 

[RobFantini]

Hey,

it is now controlled by the PBS_LOG environment variable, so PBS_LOG=error proxmox-backup-client .... Also described here [1], but you're right the help command should probably also contain that information. In general, you can redirect both stdout and stderr with command > /dev/null 2>&1.

[1] https://pbs.proxmox.com/docs/command-syntax.html

I'm not sure of the syntax.

which of these should be used ?

export PBS_LOG='error proxmox-backup-client'

# or
export PBS_LOG='error'

 

[Bubbagump210]

You would want

export PBS_LOG=error

 

[RobFantini]

You would want

thank you

 

[l_fish]

Hi,

I tried with using PBS_LOG=error. It works but I still get the skipping mount point: "..." messages. How to suppress those? IMHO skipping a mount point is not an error but should be classified as warn or info?

Update
I also get warning: file size increased while reading: "...", file will be truncated! with PBS_LOG=error.

My script:

#!/bin/bash
export PBS_REPOSITORY="...";
export PBS_PASSWORD="...";
export PBS_FINGERPRINT="...";
export PBS_LOG=error

proxmox-backup-client backup root.pxar:/ --include-dev /etc/pve --include-dev /boot --include-dev /boot/efi --exclude /var/lib/vz/dump/ --keyfile /etc/pve/priv/storage/xxx.enc

proxmox-backup-client version 2.2.5

 

[DeltaTangoLima]

Apologies for necro'ing this thread, but did you get anywhere suppressing the skipping mount point messages, @l_fish? I just started using Proxmox recently, and am setting up scheduled host backups using the client.

 

[l_fish]

Apologies for necro'ing this thread, but did you get anywhere suppressing the skipping mount point messages, @l_fish? I just started using Proxmox recently, and am setting up scheduled host backups using the client.

No, I still get those messages.

 

[l_fish]

I created a bug report now: https://bugzilla.proxmox.com/show_bug.cgi?id=4578

 

[fabian]

https://lists.proxmox.com/pipermail/pbs-devel/2023-March/005998.html
https://lists.proxmox.com/pipermail/pbs-devel/2023-March/005999.html