Re: [rdiff-backup-users] rdiff-backup 1.1.11 failing on Mac OS X 10.4.9

[Andrew Ferguson]

Patrick McNeal wrote:
> On Jun 19, 2007, at 11:34 PM, Andrew Ferguson wrote:
> 
>> Have you been able to use any other version of 1.1?
> 
> I've never tried.  If I find some time, I'll try and do some  
> regressions against old versions, though I still find it interesting  
> that 1.0 works fine.
> 
>> Can you try a very simple backup, such as:
>>
>> $ mkdir test
>> $ touch test/file
>> $ rdiff-backup test test.bak
>>
>> Does that work?
> 
> Yes, that worked fine.

How about:

$ mkdir test
$ touch test/file
$ rdiff-backup test /Volumes/mcneal/backup/test.bak

That should be the same use case as what triggered your error.

>> Also, is there anything special about /Volumes/mcneal/ or the way it's
>> mounted?
> 
> Not from what I can tell, but playing around, I was able to run the  
> same command, against the same file store, just mounted over SMB.   
> Also, it looks like I can run the same command, against a different  
> file store that's mounted via AFP.  I'll keep poking around and let  
> you know if I find anything.

Is that different file store mounted via AFP on the same server? Maybe
there are some AFP options on the server that can cause problems for
symlinks.

A test for that would be:

$ cd /Volumes/mcneal/backup/
$ touch src
$ ln -s src tgt
$ rm tgt
$ rm src

In fact, that sequence of commands is basically what rdiff-backup is
doing to test for the ability to create symlinks. The error you got was
from the "rm tgt" command.

> One a side note, what's the "best practice" for backing up mac  
> clients, mounting the file system, or backing up over ssh?

I prefer SSH because network filesystems can have a nasty habit of
caching data in a way that confuses rdiff-backup (I think the last of
the known SMB/CIFS bugs on windows+linux have just been worked out).

The only downside to SSH is that it uses compression by default which
can be slower if you are CPU-bound and not network-bound. Use the
--ssh-no-compression option to turn that off.

Andrew

-- 
Andrew Ferguson - address@hidden