[rdiff-backup-users] Segmentation fault; Exception 'Truncated header string', Kernel BUG at <bad filename>:144!

[Bjoern]

Hello,

going nuts here. I'm using rdiff 0.13.4 (librsync 0.9.7) on a i686 Linux 
pc to incrementally backup two servers.
One server runs just fine, but the other one breaks during rdiffing. I 
used this command:

root # rdiff-backup --exclude /mnt --exclude /proc [--exclude ...]  / 
desthost::/backup/server2

However, it fails with a segfault, here's the output:

desthost::/backup/server2
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Detected abilities for source (read only) file system:
Access control lists Off
Extended attributes Off
Mac OS X style resource forks Off
Mac OS X Finder information Off
-----------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Detected abilities for destination (read/write) file system:
Characters needing quoting ''
Ownership changing On
Hard linking On
fsync() directories On
Directory inc permissions On
Access control lists Off
Extended attributes Off
Mac OS X style resource forks Off
Mac OS X Finder information Off
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Previous backup seems to have failed, regressing destination now.
Segmentation fault
desthost root # Exception 'Truncated header string (problem probably
originated remotely)' raised of class
'rdiff_backup.connection.ConnectionReadError':
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/rdiff_backup/robust.py", line 32,
in check_common_error
try: return function(*args)
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/rdiff_backup/rpath.py", line 96, in
copy
if rpin.isreg(): copy_reg_file(rpin, rpout, compress)
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/rdiff_backup/rpath.py", line 118,
in copy_reg_file
rpout.write_from_fileobj(rpin.open("rb"), compress = compress)
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/rdiff_backup/rpath.py", line 947,
in write_from_fileobj
copyfileobj(fp, outfp)
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/rdiff_backup/rpath.py", line 58, in
copyfileobj
inbuf = inputfp.read(blocksize)
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/rdiff_backup/rpath.py", line 1155,
in read
def read(self, length = -1): return self.file.read(length)
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/rdiff_backup/iterfile.py", line
117, in read
if not self.addtobuffer(): break
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/rdiff_backup/iterfile.py", line
132, in addtobuffer
type, data = self.iwf._get()
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/rdiff_backup/iterfile.py", line
401, in _get
if not self.buf: self.buf += self.file.read()
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/rdiff_backup/connection.py", line
513, in read
return self.connection.VirtualFile.readfromid(self.id, length)
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/rdiff_backup/connection.py", line
445, in __call__
return apply(self.connection.reval, (self.name,) + args)
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/rdiff_backup/connection.py", line
365, in reval
result = self.get_response(req_num)
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/rdiff_backup/connection.py", line
314, in get_response
try: req_num, object = self._get()
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/rdiff_backup/connection.py", line
230, in _get
raise ConnectionReadError("Truncated header string (problem "

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/bin/rdiff-backup", line 23, in ?
rdiff_backup.Main.Main(sys.argv[1:])
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/rdiff_backup/Main.py", line 259, in
Main
take_action(rps)
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/rdiff_backup/Main.py", line 227, in
take_action
connection.PipeConnection(sys.stdin, sys.stdout).Server()
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/rdiff_backup/connection.py", line
352, in Server
self.get_response(-1)
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/rdiff_backup/connection.py", line
314, in get_response
try: req_num, object = self._get()
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/rdiff_backup/connection.py", line
230, in _get
raise ConnectionReadError("Truncated header string (problem "
rdiff_backup.connection.ConnectionReadError: Truncated header string
(problem probably originated remotely)
Exception exceptions.TypeError: "'NoneType' object is not callable"
in /usr/lib/python2.3/gzip.py:129: FutureWarning: hex()/oct() of negative
int will return a signed string in Python 2.4 and up
return '<gzip ' + s[1:-1] + ' ' + hex(id(self)) + '>'
<bound method GzipFile.__del__ of <gzip open file
'/backup/server2/rdiff-backup-data/file_statistics.2005-03-09T07:15:39+01:00.data.gz',mode 

'wb' at 0xb7f1e420 0xb7e6dfcc>> ignored
Exception exceptions.TypeError: "'NoneType' object is not callable" in
<bound method GzipFile.__del__ of <gzip open file
'/backup/server2/rdiff-backup-data/error_log.2005-03-09T07:15:39+01:00.data.gz', 

mode 'wb' at 0xb7f8ff60 0xb7e5ff2c>> ignored
Exception exceptions.TypeError: "'NoneType' object is not callable" in
ignored


On the originating server I found that the kernel made a "bug", here is 
the output of the kernel message:

Mar  9 12:04:17 [kernel] kernel BUG at <bad filename>:144!


This always seems to happen whenever it is syncing for the backup. I am 
going crazy. I especially excluded larger files and so on, but no clue 
how to make rdiff-backup work for this server.

At first I thought it might have to do with the network connection, but 
it wouldn't make any sense, since the other server is running in the 
exact same network environment just like a charm.

ANY, and I mean ANY kind of help - or any pointer into the right 
direction -  is warmly appreciated.

Thank you very much.

Best,
  Bjoern