Re: [rdiff-backup-users] rdiff-backup --verify 1.2.8 running around in circles

[Dominic Raferd]

Marc:

I can't help with the python. But first step, unless the most recent 
backup is critical to you, is to try regressing the repository to get it 
back to a clean state, with the --check-destination-dir switch. If this 
refuses to regress, claiming that there is no corruption, I have a bash 
script which can 'force' a regression. You can repeat this as many times 
as necessary to get past (hopefully) the original corruption.

Secondly, rdiff-backup --verify switch gives only a partial verification 
of the repository. Daniel Miller wrote a patch, available for 
rdiff-backup 1.2.8, which adds --verify-full and --verify-full-at-time 
switches which can perform a full verification of a repository. I use 
this patched version in TimeDicer Server for this purpose only in 
preference to the standard rdiff-backup program.

Dominic
Http://www.timedicer.co.uk

On 20/02/11 12:23, Marc Haber wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have an rdiff-backup directory that was corrupted by a file system
> crash. As I don't want to lose the backup, I tried rdiff-backup
> -v9 --verify on the repository. But already after a few seconds of
> running, output stops at:
>
> Sun Feb 20 08:28:51 2011  Verified SHA1 digest of etc/kde4/kdm/backgroundrc
> Sun Feb 20 08:28:51 2011  Verified SHA1 digest of etc/kde4/kdm/kdm.options
> Sun Feb 20 08:28:51 2011  Verified SHA1 digest of etc/kde4/kdm/kdmrc
> Sun Feb 20 08:28:51 2011  Verified SHA1 digest of etc/kde4/kdm/kdmrc.dpkg-old
> Sun Feb 20 08:28:51 2011  Verified SHA1 digest of etc/kde4/khotnewstuff.knsrc
> Sun Feb 20 08:28:51 2011  Verified SHA1 digest of etc/kde4/kshorturifilterrc
> Sun Feb 20 08:28:51 2011  Verified SHA1 digest of 
> etc/kernel/postinst.d/initrSun Feb 20 08:28:51 2011  Warning: Could not restore 
> file etc/kernel/postinst.d/initramfs-tools!
>
> A regular file was indicated by the metadata, but could not be
> constructed from existing increments because last increment had type
> None.  Instead of the actual file's data, an empty length file will be
> created.  This error is probably caused by data loss in the
> rdiff-backup destination directory, or a bug in rdiff-backup
> Sun Feb 20 08:28:51 2011  Warning: Computed SHA1 digest of 
> etc/kernel/postinst.d/initramfs-tools
>     da39a3ee5e6b4b0d3255bfef95601890afd80709
> doesn't match recorded digest of
>     e69689ccfb34f74c4ba64d1f1e842df083020b31
> Your backup repository may be corrupted!
>
> and rdiff-backup starts taking 100 % CPU and stopped accessing the
> disk. This was not the first case of an increment of type None being
> found and flagged as such.
>
>  From a cursory look at an strace output, rdiff-backup seems to be
> running around in the following loop...