[rdiff-backup-users] Debugging a simple (?) backup setup

[Matthew Bloch]

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Hi there,

I'm having another go at trying to set up a remote backup solution for my
laptop to another machine over a wireless link, and wondered if anyone could
suggest what was going wrong.  I just want to dump the whole filesystem over
the link every night, should be simple enough.

I'm setting it up over a plain TCP link to avoid faffing with ssh and
because the link is already over an encrypted VPN.  Hence I use netcat as a
reomte schema.

Server-side line in inetd.conf (subject to access controls!):

  2711 stream tcp nowait mattbee nice tcpd /usr/local/bin/rdiff-backup 
    --server --restrict /backup/geri

And on my laptop, here is the backup script

  REMOTE="butler.office.bytemark.co.uk::/backup/geri/backup"

  nice /usr/local/bin/rdiff-backup \
    --remote-schema '/bin/netcat %s 2711' \
    --exclude-device-files  \
    --exclude-other-filesystems \
    --exclude "/.*\.o(bj)?$"  \
    --exclude "/.*\.class$"  \
    --exclude "/\.xvpics$"  \
    --exclude "/.kde/share/thumbnails"  \
    --exclude "/\/\.*cache.*"  \
    --exclude "/home/mattbee/builds"  \
    --exclude "/var/cache/apt/archive/*.deb" \
    / $REMOTE

What happens when I run it:

(long pause, mucho data transferred, evident on butler:/backup/geri)

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/bin/rdiff-backup", line 24, in ?
    rdiff_backup.Main.Main(sys.argv[1:])
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.2/site-packages/rdiff_backup/Main.py", line
244, in Main
    take_action(rps)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.2/site-packages/rdiff_backup/Main.py", line
217, in take_action
    elif action == "backup": Backup(rps[0], rps[1])
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.2/site-packages/rdiff_backup/Main.py", line
261, in Backup
    backup.Mirror(rpin, rpout)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.2/site-packages/rdiff_backup/backup.py", line
36, in Mirror
    DestS.patch(dest_rpath, source_diffiter)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.2/site-packages/rdiff_backup/connection.py",
line 424, in __call__
    return apply(self.connection.reval, (self.name,) + args)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.2/site-packages/rdiff_backup/connection.py",
line 344, in reval
    result = self.get_response(req_num)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.2/site-packages/rdiff_backup/connection.py",
line 293, in get_response
    try: req_num, object = self._get()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.2/site-packages/rdiff_backup/connection.py",
line 216, in _get
    raise ConnectionReadError("Truncated header string (problem "

Which isn't a great deal of help :)  Anyone know where to start looking to
diagnose the problem?  I'm using rdiff-backup 0.12.0 as of the end of June
at both ends; are there any other system dependencies I should be looking
out for?

cheers,

- -- 
Matthew Bloch                             Bytemark Hosting
                                  tel. +44 (0) 8707 455026
                        http://www.bytemark-hosting.co.uk/
          Dedicated Linux hosts from 15ukp ($26) per month
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