[rdiff-backup-users] Intermittent connection failures

[Jussi Hirvi]

I have something like a terabyte of stuff to backup. I do it each day 
with more than ten rdiff-backup scripts (one for each directory).

Lately I have been getting these errors:

> Received disconnect from nn.nn.nn.nn: 2: Timeout, your session not responding.
> Fatal Error: Lost connection to the remote system

(nn.nn.nn.nn stands for source ip).

the script is of this type:

rdiff-backup --exclude-special-files --force --remote-schema  "ssh -i 
/root/.ssh/myserver.dsa %s rdiff-backup --server" 
address@hidden::/path/to/dir /path/to/dir  1>> logfile 2>> logfile

I have tried different things, like
- simply rerun the script
- throw away rdiff-backup-data directory, then try again
- like before, then use rsync, then rdiff-backup again
- add ServerAliveInterval 180 to /etc/ssh/ssh_config on target
  and ClientAliveInterval 180 to sshd_config on source machine
- add ConnectTimeout 300 to ssh_config on target machine

Adjusting ssh_config seems to have no effect. These errors seem to 
center on some dirs and not on others. But the errors don't occur every 
time, which makes it hard to find the reason.

Finally, here is some version information (same versions on source and 
target):
- CentOS 5.6 (source 64-bit, target 32-bit)
- rdiff-backup 1.2.8

I could check versions of dependencies, if necessary. There may be 
version differences because one system is 32- and the other 64-bit.

One theory is that the router for my target machine (my modem is in 
bridge mode, so the router is owned by cable operator) plays nasty. They 
changed all ip's recently, and I think these errors started to appear 
around the same time. Probably the whole machine has been changed, the 
routing capabilities for my LAN changed (no more Bonjour printer 
sharing, etc.).

Any thoughts about the reason and remedy of the rdiff-backup errors?

Thanks,
Jussi