Re: [rdiff-backup-users] Windows Backing up to Linux storing tiny diffs for every file. Any ideas?

[Josh Nisly]

Andrew Ferguson wrote:
> On Aug 2, 2008, at 6:55 AM, kartweel wrote:
> > I'm backing up from windows to linux over ssh using the new 1.2.0 on 
> > both
> > client and server. Dispite my efforts and fiddling with clocks, it 
> > stores a
> > diff for every file even when there are no changes. It isn't a big 
> > deal, but
> > I have some large files which take several minutes to generate diffs 
> > when
> > there is no need. I have tried synching clocks. I've tried the --no-acls
> > option with no difference.
> >
> > Any ideas or any ways to try and further narrow down what the problem 
> > is?
> >
> > The command I am using from windows is:
> >
> > rdiff-backup -v8 --remote-schema "bin/ssh -C -l backup -i sshkey -o
> > \"StrictHostKeyChecking no\" %s rdiff-backup --server" --no-acls
> > --print-statistics C:\temp\test 192.168.2.2::test8
> >
> > Thanks everyone.
>
>
> Thanks for the bug report. If you add the "--no-hard-links" option to 
> rdiff-backup, then the problem goes away.
>
> Josh, does Windows even support hardlinks properly? The problem is 
> that rdiff-backup uses the inode numbers to keep track of hardlinks 
> and since the inode numbers are all zero on Windows, rdiff-backup 
> believes the file has changed. (iirc) The relevant function is 
> Hardlink.rorp_eq(src_rorp, dest_rorp) which is Hardlink.py:86
>
> I'll be away next week, so no rush on the patch.

Sorry for not getting back sooner. Since Windows has no support for 
hardlinks, I think we should check against os.name in fs_abilities.py 
and completely ignore hardlinks (equivalent to --no-hard-links) if 
os.name == "nt". I can submit a patch, but it might be a while, since 
I'm pretty swamped with other things right now.

Thanks,
JoshN