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

[Robert Nichols]

On 02/20/2011 02:51 PM, Marc Haber wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 20, 2011 at 06:11:19PM +0000, Dominic Raferd wrote:
>
> > 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.
>
> Debian's version does not seem to be patched. What does --verify omit?

If you read the last message from Dan Miller in that "New feature:
--verify-full" thread you see why versions including that patch have not
been distributed.

http://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/rdiff-backup-users/2010-02/msg00054.html

And, it wouldn't help for your case anyway.  The patch file contains the
following:

  +WARNING this will not detect if your repository has already been corrupted.
  +It will create integrity signatures with the files as they exist when you
  +run the script. Any corruption that happened before that point can only
  +be detected with --verify-at-time. However, after you run this script you
  +can use --verify-full to verify that nothing has changed since you ran this
  +script.

The "--verify" and "--verify-at-time now" options are OK for checking the
current mirror (aside from problems with files having multiple hard links,
which rdiff-backup stumbles with in other places too).  The big problem is
not having a way to verify the entire archive.  The suggestion on the wiki
site to pick a date that is at least as old as the oldest rdiff session is
very wrong.  Only the content that existed on that oldest date will be
checked.  Many forms of corruption for subsequent dates will go unnoticed.

--
Bob Nichols     "NOSPAM" is really part of my email address.
                Do NOT delete it.