strange .backup. directories in joomla site/filesystem

[lightningbit]

Hi,

since a while, I'm noticing strange .backup. directories in my joomla sites. (see example below) I'm not sure when it started, and where they come from.
I'm not using other cms or frameworks on the server so I'm not sure it is from joomla, or from directadmin/installatron

some extra info:
- using directadmin
- using installatron as a script installer
- NOT using joomla's internal update mechanism, but the autoupdate (for minor/security updates only) from installatron (because it automatically makes a backup of the whole joomla installation before doing the update)

the backupfolders have a different permissions setting and user/group as you can see below

Name 	                                                    Size 	Perm. 	 Date 	UID 	GID
com_gantry	                                               12.0k	777	Mar 17 19:17 2013	***** ******
com_gantry.backup.6978162f29b5fe37dd98b200cfeec6d4	       12.0k	755	 Mar 17 19:17 2013	apache	apache	
com_j2xmlimporter	                                        188k	777	Mar 17 19:17 2013	***** *****
com_j2xmlimporter.backup.9bf2de927417c9f8830810715027d595	 188k	755	Mar 17 19:17 2013	apache	apache	
com_jce	                                                   5.97M	777	Mar 17 19:17 2013	***** *****
com_jce.backup.6978162f29b5fe37dd98b200cfeec6d4           	5.97M	755	Mar 17 19:17 2013	apache	apache	
com_jumi	                                                 80.0k	777	Mar 17 19:17 2013	***** *****
com_jumi.backup.a2bbf67b58ba7571c98237c4a938c4c6	          80.0k	755	Mar 17 19:17 2013	apache	apache

it does not affect the working of the site (as far as I know) but it is consuming diskspace
it also does not happen with ALL directories, just some of them
it also happens with e.g. the image & media directories etc...
they can be very large.
and if this happens with > 50 joomla sites on a server, this can mean GB's diskspace taken by such folders

I can clean them, but imagine the time it would take to (manually) check and clean the whole directory structure of > 50 joomla sites

I'll ask the same question in other forums (joomla, installatron, ..) , but maybe someone here came across the same occurrence and knows the cause

thanks

L.

 

[zEitEr]

I can clean them, but imagine the time it would take to (manually) check and clean the whole directory structure of > 50 joomla sites

Use a shell to do it as a bulk action

but the autoupdate (for minor/security updates only) from installatron

That might be the core.