topic Re: SMS - size of backup file in General Topics

SMS - size of backup file

Mikula83 — Thu, 21 Aug 2025 07:06:47 GMT

Hello,

after installation of Gaia R82 JHF Take 36 on SMS (Security Management Server) I have found something very strange. Maybe it was before but after that action I have noticed it. During local system backup I noticed that process is very slow and file size is too big. Backup has finished after 37:58 minutes and size is 30.13 GB. (attached picture). I have never seen it before.

Is it possible that system backup is larger than snapshot?

What could be the cause of this?

Best regards,

Milan Babic

Re: SMS - size of backup file

Danny — Thu, 21 Aug 2025 07:38:56 GMT

Simply check what's inside the backup file taking so much storage.
The location of your backup file is shown on your screenshot.

Re: SMS - size of backup file

G_W_Albrecht — Thu, 21 Aug 2025 07:38:40 GMT

Better open SR# with TAC to seen if there is an issue ! My SMS Backup is less 1 than GB, but that can vary...

@PhoneBoy can you put this to Management?

Re: SMS - size of backup file

Alex- — Thu, 21 Aug 2025 08:39:27 GMT

It was reported that R81.20 Take 111 started to include logs in backups.

https://community.checkpoint.com/t5/Product-Announcements/R81-20-Jumbo-Hotfix-Accumulator-take-111-has-been-released-today/ba-p/254492/jump-to/first-unread-message

That might be something similar here, TAC could confirm.

Re: SMS - size of backup file

DavidD — Thu, 21 Aug 2025 10:23:51 GMT

We have detected similar issue in our environment, but regarding backups of gateways.

We have x 2 15400 GW-s running in VSX mode.

Gaia version is R81 JHF T92

From being below 1GB to increasing over 7GB in size.

The only correlation we can make is when we migrated Smart-1 appliance management server to a VM running R81.20

Re: SMS - size of backup file

_Val_ — Thu, 21 Aug 2025 11:23:22 GMT

Check if your backups now include logs or not.

Re: SMS - size of backup file

Dov_Fraivert — Thu, 21 Aug 2025 12:26:01 GMT

@Alex- It really looks like the same issue, and there’s already a fix for TAC that will be released soon for all relevant versions.

Re: SMS - size of backup file

Dov_Fraivert — Thu, 21 Aug 2025 14:23:59 GMT

The following SK describes the issue and the possible workarounds:

https://support.checkpoint.com/results/sk/sk183835?server=us

Re: SMS - size of backup file

G_W_Albrecht — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 09:52:23 GMT

I have given feedback to https://support.checkpoint.com/results/sk/sk91400 that this should be included!

Re: SMS - size of backup file

DavidD — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 13:09:41 GMT

I confirm logs are included, in this case there is even log files from 2021....

I guess it is best to clear up these old logs from the Gateways?

The original file was 1.6GB, extracted 8GB. And this is one of the lighter files, the latest backups are over 2.9GB.

Re: SMS - size of backup file

DavidD — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 13:25:20 GMT

Just to add, we just tested creating a backup locally after upgrading the gateways to R82 JHF T34.

And now the size of backup is 284MBs.....

Re: SMS - size of backup file

David_C1 — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 15:31:15 GMT

My 2 cents:

This is a bad idea to make this the default (especially without telling anyone). The size of the backup file, in particular on an SMS, can change dramatically if you keep any amount of historical logs on the device. This can cause backups to fail, or if they succeed, to take up much more space than anticipated. Not good.

Dave