BACKUPMON BACKUPMON v1.5.10 -Mar 1, 2024- Backup/Restore your Router: JFFS + NVRAM + External USB Drive! (**Thread closed due to age**)

[Viktor Jaep]

I've tried everything and I am unable to load BackupMon.

When I try to launch it, I get:

External USB Drive Label Name is not sufficient. Please give it a value, other than blank. Omit any spaces.

I tried to give the 2 USB drives connected a Label, as shown by blkid:

View attachment 54265

Any suggestions?

Try this helpful script that @Martinski came up with to help troubleshoot this...

Please copy & paste the following set of commands on your SSH terminal window and post the resulting file (USB_MountPoints_DEBUG.txt):

{
printf "$(nvram get productid): "
printf "$(nvram get firmver).$(nvram get buildno).$(nvram get extendno)\n"
printf "\nBLKID\n-----\n"
   blkid
printf "\nMOUNT /dev/sd.*\n---------------\n"
mount | grep "/dev/sd.*"
printf "\nMOUNT /tmp/mnt/.*\n-----------------\n"
mount | grep "/tmp/mnt/.*"
} > $HOME/USB_MountPoints_DEBUG.txt

oh... hum... why is it just called /dev/sda on your setup, and not /dev/sda1. That's probably why... because I'm checking for sda1 by default. It's checking for a drive label that's not in existence. I may need to tweak this logic somewhat.

 

[ColinTaylor]

I've tried everything and I am unable to load BackupMon.

When I try to launch it, I get:

External USB Drive Label Name is not sufficient. Please give it a value, other than blank. Omit any spaces.

I tried to give the 2 USB drives connected a Label, as shown by blkid:

View attachment 54265

Any suggestions?

It can't cope with the fact that your /dev/sda drive doesn't have any partitions. Try unmounting the EXTUSB drive and rebooting the router. After it's fully booted plug the EXTUSB drive back in and try again.

 

[Ripshod]

Short UUID. Is the partiton on sda formatted as ntfs?

 

[Viktor Jaep]

I've tried everything and I am unable to load BackupMon.

When I try to launch it, I get:

External USB Drive Label Name is not sufficient. Please give it a value, other than blank. Omit any spaces.

I tried to give the 2 USB drives connected a Label, as shown by blkid:

View attachment 54265

Any suggestions?

@TheMorpN ... I may have a potential fix if you are still running into issues after running that particular troubleshooting script, and after @ColinTaylor's suggestion of unmounting, rebooting and plugging your drive back in. Just let me know, and I can share that with you.

 

[thelonelycoder]

@Viktor Jaep , instead of the user having to exit and restart after an update as you suggest can't you not just run exec /jffs/scripts/backupmon.sh? This loads the new file and users can get right into re-configuring the new settings. I do this with amtm and Diversion after an update.

Please exit, restart and configure new options using: 'backupmon.sh -setup'.
NOTE: New features may have been added that require your input to take
advantage of its full functionality.

 

[_m4t3u_]

Hi All,

First, I want to thank all of you for help to Asus router owners by sharing your work and knowledges. At same time I apologizes if my post is not following any rule or missing some info, this is my first one, and my english is not as fluid as I would like...

I'm having similar problem as @TheMorpN. The error message is the same "ERROR: External USB Drive Label Name is not sufficient. Please give it a value, other than blank. Omit any spaces. Example: EXTUSB, or SAMSUNG-SSD... etc.".

The difference attending to my case, I guess, it may be due to a "_" character in my sdb1 device (labeled as "rtr_swap", it seems I was worried about to identify what this device was intended for... ). This is my "USB_MountPoints_DEBUG.txt" content:

BLKID
-----
/dev/sda2: LABEL="Data" UUID="CE2A3E342A3E19C3"
/dev/sdb1: LABEL="rtr_swap" UUID="6ee644d7-de49-4ef3-962a-311a40ebd725"

In order to help in troubleshot I can give two additional info to previous questions, based on my issue:

1.- @Ripshod, yes, my sda2, which have a short UUID, is formatted as NTFS.
2.- @thelonelycoder, when I try to run "sh /jffs/scripts/backupmon.sh -setup", I get the error message described before. I can't run BACKUPMON from amtm menú neither, getting the same error.

@Viktor Jaep, I was running previous BACKUPMON without any problem with same devices and labels, I hope all info we provide can help to troubleshoot the issue!

 

[Viktor Jaep]

@Viktor Jaep , instead of the user having to exit and restart after an update as you suggest can't you not just run exec /jffs/scripts/backupmon.sh? This loads the new file and users can get right into re-configuring the new settings. I do this with amtm and Diversion after an update.

Please exit, restart and configure new options using: 'backupmon.sh -setup'.
NOTE: New features may have been added that require your input to take
advantage of its full functionality.

Thank you for this nugget! I added this in.

 

[Viktor Jaep]

Hi All,

First, I want to thank all of you for help to Asus router owners by sharing your work and knowledges. At same time I apologizes if my post is not following any rule or missing some info, this is my first one, and my english is not as fluid as I would like...

I'm having similar problem as @TheMorpN. The error message is the same "ERROR: External USB Drive Label Name is not sufficient. Please give it a value, other than blank. Omit any spaces. Example: EXTUSB, or SAMSUNG-SSD... etc.".

The difference attending to my case, I guess, it may be due to a "_" character in my sdb1 device (labeled as "rtr_swap", it seems I was worried about to identify what this device was intended for... ). This is my "USB_MountPoints_DEBUG.txt" content:

BLKID
-----
/dev/sda2: LABEL="Data" UUID="CE2A3E342A3E19C3"
/dev/sdb1: LABEL="rtr_swap" UUID="6ee644d7-de49-4ef3-962a-311a40ebd725"

In order to help in troubleshot I can give two additional info to previous questions, based on my issue:

1.- @Ripshod, yes, my sda2, which have a short UUID, is formatted as NTFS.
2.- @thelonelycoder, when I try to run "sh /jffs/scripts/backupmon.sh -setup", I get the error message described before. I can't run BACKUPMON from amtm menú neither, getting the same error.

@Viktor Jaep, I was running previous BACKUPMON without any problem with same devices and labels, I hope all info we provide can help to troubleshoot the issue!

Thanks for the feedback, @_m4t3u_ & @TheMorpN ... that hopefully gives me enough to go on, and validates my concerns. The issue here is trying to determine if a USB drive label is insufficient, and for some reason it's trickier than anticipated because there's different weird variations... like in your case, it's picking sda2 and sdb1, and in some cases, these can change to something different after a reboot.

Also, I'd love it if you each could share the results of this command please?

nvram show | grep "usb_path"

@_m4t3u_ & @TheMorpN ... I've uploaded a quick beta to see if this helps with your situations? Please let me know what kind of results this gives you. Does it let you right into BACKUPMON, or does it present you with a warning first?

Download link (copy & paste into your SSH client):

curl --retry 3 "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ViktorJp/BACKUPMON/master/backupmon-1.39b1.sh" -o "/jffs/scripts/backupmon.sh" && chmod 755 "/jffs/scripts/backupmon.sh"

 

[vaboro]

this is the mount statement:

  mount -t cifs \\10.0.100.90\Backups /tmp/mnt/primary -o "vers=2.1,username=admin,password=admin"

Is the vers=2.1 option crucial for proper script operation?
I have Asuswrt-Merlin gt-ac2900 386.12_0 at the moment and running # mount with vers=2.1 results in:

Spoiler: Invalid argument error

ladmin@GT-AC2900-1:/tmp/home/root# mount -t cifs -o "vers=2.1,username=******,password=******" "\\\\192.168.0.2\\backups (at Files)" /tmp/mnt/backups
mount: mounting \\192.168.0.2\backups (at Files) on /tmp/mnt/backups failed: Invalid argument

Whereas if I omit "vers=2.1" the share mounts successfully with vers=1.0:

Spoiler: Successful mount with vers=1.0

ladmin@GT-AC2900-1:/tmp/home/root# mount -t cifs -o "username=******,password=******" "\\\\192.168.0.2\\backups (at Files)" /tmp/mnt/backups
ladmin@GT-AC2900-1:/tmp/home/root# mount | grep /tmp/mnt
tmpfs on /tmp/mnt type tmpfs (rw,noexec,relatime,size=16k)
tmpfs on /tmp/mnt type tmpfs (rw,noexec,relatime,size=16k)
/dev/sda1 on /tmp/mnt/Storage type ext4 (rw,nodev,relatime,data=ordered)
\\192.168.0.2\backups (at Files) on /tmp/mnt/backups type cifs (rw,relatime,vers=1.0,cache=strict,username=ladmin,domain=GT-AC2900-2,uid=0,noforceuid,gid=0,noforcegid,addr=192.168.0.2,unix,posixpaths,serverino,mapposix,acl,rsize=1048576,wsize=1048576,actimeo=1)

The maximum vers I could use to mount the share successfully was vers=2.0:

Spoiler: Successful mount with vers=2.0

ladmin@GT-AC2900-1:/tmp/home/root# mount -t cifs -o "vers=2.0,username=******,password=******" "\\\\192.168.0.2\\backups (at Files)" /tmp/mnt/backups
ladmin@GT-AC2900-1:/tmp/home/root# mount | grep /tmp/mnt
tmpfs on /tmp/mnt type tmpfs (rw,noexec,relatime,size=16k)
tmpfs on /tmp/mnt type tmpfs (rw,noexec,relatime,size=16k)
/dev/sda1 on /tmp/mnt/Storage type ext4 (rw,nodev,relatime,data=ordered)
\\192.168.0.2\backups (at Files) on /tmp/mnt/backups type cifs (rw,relatime,vers=2.0,sec=ntlmssp,cache=strict,username=ladmin,domain=GT-AC2900-2,uid=0,noforceuid,gid=0,noforcegid,addr=192.168.0.2,file_mode=0755,dir_mode=0755,nounix,serverino,mapposix,rsize=65536,wsize=65536,actimeo=1)

vers=2.1 and vers=3.0 don't work for me.
I also found out that $TESTUNC, $UNC, $SECONDARYUNC should be double quoted in the # mount statement like so:

Spoiler: Doble quoting $TESTUNC example

mount -t cifs "$TESTUNC" $TESTUNCDRIVE -o "vers=2.0,username=${TESTUSER},password=${TESTPWD}"

Otherwise the script can't mount shares with spaces in their names like in my case.

Spoiler: Share mount with spaces in its name

Messages:
INFO: Backup Target (192.168.0.2) reachable via PING.
INFO: External test drive mount point exists. Found under: /tmp/mnt/backups
STATUS: External test drive (\\192.168.0.2\backups (at Files)) mounted successfully under: /tmp/mnt/backups
STATUS: Test Backup Directory successfully created under: /router/GT-AC2900-1-Backup
STATUS: Daily Test Backup Subdirectory successfully created under: /router/GT-AC2900-1-Backup/test
STATUS: Finished copying testfile.txt to /tmp/mnt/backups/router/GT-AC2900-1-Backup/test
STATUS: Settling for 10 seconds...
STATUS: External test tetwork drive (\\192.168.0.2\backups (at Files)) unmounted successfully.
Press any key to acknowledge...

 

[_m4t3u_]

Thanks for the feedback, @_m4t3u_ & @TheMorpN ... that hopefully gives me enough to go on, and validates my concerns. The issue here is trying to determine if a USB drive label is insufficient, and for some reason it's trickier than anticipated because there's different weird variations... like in your case, it's picking sda2 and sdb1, and in some cases, these can change to something different after a reboot.

Also, I'd love it if you each could share the results of this command please?

nvram show | grep "usb_path"

@_m4t3u_ & @TheMorpN ... I've uploaded a quick beta to see if this helps with your situations? Please let me know what kind of results this gives you. Does it let you right into BACKUPMON, or does it present you with a warning first?

Download link (copy & paste into your SSH client):

curl --retry 3 "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ViktorJp/BACKUPMON/master/backupmon-1.39b1.sh" -o "/jffs/scripts/backupmon.sh" && chmod 755 "/jffs/scripts/backupmon.sh"

Here, atached, is the exit of the command you asked for.

In reference to the quick beta, it appears to be running for me, First it shows an advice/error error messsage, but then, when count down finishes, BACKUPMON loads and seems to run without problems. Tonight I'ven't got time to test deeper, but tomorrow I will test and provide feedback. Here is the advice/error message I get when launching BACKUPMON by using AMTM + "bm" command:

WARNING: External USB Drive Label Name is not sufficient, or unable to detect default sda drive label.

BACKUPMON MAY NOT FUNCTION CORRECTLY IN THIS SCENARIO

Should your drive be without a label, please give it a value, other than blank. Omit any spaces.
Example: EXTUSB, or SAMSUNG-SSD... etc.

[Continuing in 10 seconds]...

Thanks for your support and hel! If you need anything else, let me to know.

 

[Viktor Jaep]

Here, atached, is the exit of the command you asked for.

In reference to the quick beta, it appears to be running for me, First it shows an advice/error error messsage, but then, when count down finishes, BACKUPMON loads and seems to run without problems. Tonight I'ven't got time to test deeper, but tomorrow I will test and provide feedback. Here is the advice/error message I get when launching BACKUPMON by using AMTM + "bm" command:

WARNING: External USB Drive Label Name is not sufficient, or unable to detect default sda drive label.

BACKUPMON MAY NOT FUNCTION CORRECTLY IN THIS SCENARIO

Should your drive be without a label, please give it a value, other than blank. Omit any spaces.
Example: EXTUSB, or SAMSUNG-SSD... etc.

[Continuing in 10 seconds]...

Thanks for your support and hel! If you need anything else, let me to know.

I believe the reason for that is because your "usb_path1_fs_path0" is referring to sda1... but your sda1 label = null... One you put a label on that, then it won't complain on startup any longer.

I'm still trying to make sense out of all this, so thank you very much for providing this. Knowing that it's also referring to "usb_path2_fs_path0=sdb1" is very interesting.

usb_path1_fs_path0=sda1
usb_path2_fs_path0=sdb1

usb_path_sda1_label=
usb_path_sda2_label=Data
usb_path_sdb1_label=rtr_swap

 

[Viktor Jaep]

Is the vers=2.1 option crucial for proper script operation?
I have Asuswrt-Merlin gt-ac2900 386.12_0 at the moment and running # mount with vers=2.1 results in

Whereas if I omit "vers=2.1" the share mounts successfully with vers=1.0:

The maximum vers I could use to mount the share successfully was vers=2.0:

vers=2.1 and vers=3.0 don't work for me.

That's a great question... I would have thought that if you were along on 386.12_0, that it would be using the same SMB versions as the other newer routers. I'm sure someone smarter than me can explain why the GT-AC2900 can't support SMB v2.1 or above, and is stuck at 2.0... while my GT-AX6000 can handle 2.1 just fine (haven't tried 3.0). I'm going to guess it's a kernel version limitation? Wild guess. Apparently SMB v1.0 and v2.0 are considered "insecure", while v2.1 is considered "secure". Have not found out much about the GT-AC2900 or its kernel version. You can find out what version you're running by using this command:

uname -a

Here's mine:

Linux GT-AX6000-3C88 4.19.183 #1 SMP PREEMPT Mon Aug 21 15:34:50 EDT 2023 aarch64 ASUSWRT-Merlin

I also found out that $TESTUNC, $UNC, $SECONDARYUNC should be double quoted in the # mount statement like so:
Otherwise the script can't mount shares with spaces in their names like in my case.

I am trying to encourage people to use best practices when it comes to naming and labels. Sure it is possible, and your system isn't preventing you from doing this, but it's just really bad practice to use spaces in names like this. Shells such as bash use spaces and tabs as argument separators... so while an easy fix is to just use quotes around the mount command, that's just one piece of the puzzle. You'd have to go around everywhere to try to cleanse and make exceptions for names with spacing, or transform these label names into base64 and back in order to get back what their original name was... it's just a real PITA. Try to use labels that are all one name. Like "DATA-FILES"... or "Backups-At-Files"... stuff like that. Also, just a really bad practice to use special characters like ( ) * & % $ etc in your label names. Could cause all kinds of mayhem.

 

[ColinTaylor]

That's a great question... I would have thought that if you were along on 386.12_0, that it would be using the same SMB versions as the other newer routers. I'm sure someone smarter than me can explain why the GT-AC2900 can't support SMB v2.1 or above, and is stuck at 2.0... while my GT-AX6000 can handle 2.1 just fine (haven't tried 3.0). I'm going to guess it's a kernel version limitation? Wild guess. Apparently SMB v1.0 and v2.0 are considered "insecure", while v2.1 is considered "secure". Have not found out much about the GT-AC2900 or its kernel version. You can find out what version you're running by using this command:

This is a kernel limitation that was discussed with you earlier in this thread: https://www.snbforums.com/threads/b...drive-now-available-in-amtm.86645/post-874452

 

[vaboro]

@Viktor Jaep
Thank you for your prompt reply!

about the GT-AC2900 or its kernel version

You're right. GT-AC2900 runs a lower kernel version. Should be the same as for AC86U.

Spoiler: Output of uname command

ladmin@GT-AC2900-1:/tmp/home/root# uname -a
Linux GT-AC2900-1 4.1.27 #2 SMP PREEMPT Mon Sep 4 12:17:40 EDT 2023 aarch64 ASUSWRT-Merlin

Try to use labels that are all one name.

I would love to but I'm afraid naming of SMB shares is automatically done during boot and it includes spaces.

Spoiler: USB Application - Network Place (Samba) Share / Cloud Disk

The names of SMB shares also include disk labels.

Spoiler: Connecting to SMB share at 192.168.0.2 from Finder.app on a Mac. The title says: "Select volumes which you would like to connect to on "192.168.0.2"

 

[Viktor Jaep]

This is a kernel limitation that was discussed with you earlier in this thread: https://www.snbforums.com/threads/b...drive-now-available-in-amtm.86645/post-874452

I only have so many neurons to dedicate to kernel limitations... and that was it.

 

[ColinTaylor]

@vaboro FYI You can get rid of the "(at Files)" and "(at Storage)" suffixes by selecting the "Simpler share naming (without the disk name)" Samba option.

 

[Viktor Jaep]

@Viktor Jaep
Thank you for your prompt reply!

You're right. GT-AC2900 runs a lower kernel version. Should be the same as for AC86U.

ladmin@GT-AC2900-1:/tmp/home/root# uname -a
Linux GT-AC2900-1 4.1.27 #2 SMP PREEMPT Mon Sep 4 12:17:40 EDT 2023 aarch64 ASUSWRT-Merlin

This is what my AC86U is running:

Linux RT-AC86U-BE10 4.1.27 #2 SMP PREEMPT Sun Nov 12 20:34:28 EST 2023 aarch64 ASUSWRT-Merlin

But the weird thing is that it doesn't seem to have any problems running with SMB v2.1... So why's that, @ColinTaylor!? The GT-AC2900 can't run SMB v2.1...and we're on the same kernel version. Is there more variation under the covers?

I would love to but I'm afraid naming of SMB shares is automatically done during boot and it includes spaces.
"USB Application - Network Place (Samba) Share / Cloud Disk"

View attachment 54297

The names of SMB shares also include disk labels.
Connecting to SMB share at 192.168.0.2 from Finder.app on a Mac. The title says: "Select volumes which you would like to connect to on "192.168.0.2"'View attachment 54298

Well that's a pain... @ColinTaylor made a great suggestion above on how to turn all that stuff off...

 

[vaboro]

@vaboro FYI You can get rid of the "(at Files)" and "(at Storage)" suffixes by selecting the "Simpler share naming (without the disk name)" Samba option.

Great! Thank you! I almost quit thinking about getting rid of these disk names in samba share names
"If you want to hide something, put it in plain sight"

 

[vaboro]

But the weird thing is that it doesn't seem to have any problems running with SMB v2.1

Can you, please, post the output of # mount?
My shows that the share is mounted using SMB v2.0; whereas trying to mount using SMB v2.1 throws an "Invalid argument error".

Spoiler: The share is mounted using SMB v2.0

ladmin@GT-AC2900-1:/tmp/home/root# mount -t cifs -o "vers=2.0,username=******,password=******" "\\\\192.168.0.2\\backups (at Files)" /tmp/mnt/backups
ladmin@GT-AC2900-1:/tmp/home/root# mount | grep /tmp/mnt
tmpfs on /tmp/mnt type tmpfs (rw,noexec,relatime,size=16k)
tmpfs on /tmp/mnt type tmpfs (rw,noexec,relatime,size=16k)
/dev/sda1 on /tmp/mnt/Storage type ext4 (rw,nodev,relatime,data=ordered)
\\192.168.0.2\backups (at Files) on /tmp/mnt/backups type cifs (rw,relatime,vers=2.0,sec=ntlmssp,cache=strict,username=ladmin,domain=GT-AC2900-2,uid=0,noforceuid,gid=0,noforcegid,addr=192.168.0.2,file_mode=0755,dir_mode=0755,nounix,serverino,mapposix,rsize=65536,wsize=65536,actimeo=1)

 

[ColinTaylor]

This is what my AC86U is running:

Linux RT-AC86U-BE10 4.1.27 #2 SMP PREEMPT Sun Nov 12 20:34:28 EST 2023 aarch64 ASUSWRT-Merlin

But the weird thing is that it doesn't seem to have any problems running with SMB v2.1... So why's that, @ColinTaylor!? The GT-AC2900 can't run SMB v2.1...and we're on the same kernel version. Is there more variation under the covers?

Sorry, that's my mistake. I thought the GT-AC2900 was using kernel 2.6.36. I guess it's a difference in the build options. You'll have to check the source code to verify that.