Re: [rdiff-backup-users] KeyError exception

[Andrew Ferguson]

What are the files in:

ls -ad /

? On my non-working system, there are some /.foo -style directories,
which get picked up by how you structured the --include / --exclude setup.


Andrew

Austin Clements wrote:
> Intriguing.
> 
> It fails on both of my systems, which are both running Python 2.4.4
> and OpenSSH 4.6p1/OpenSSL 0.9.8g.  I also tried upgrading and running
> it with OpenSSH 4.7p1/OpenSSL 0.9.8f, and nothing changed.  Then I
> tried running it through Python 2.5.1 (albeit, with the C modules
> compiled for 2.4, but that didn't seem to affect anything), and still
> nothing changed.
> 
> I'm not convinced that it's a problem with Python or OpenSSH versions.
> Can you think of any other significant differences between your
> working and non-working hosts?
> 
> Quoth Andrew Ferguson on Jan 18 at  1:23 am:
>> Hi Austin,
>> 
>> I have now found a system that fails with your script, and have two that
>> do not. On the one that fails, I am running Python 2.3.4, and on the two
>> that work, one is running 2.4.1 and the other 2.5.1. The failing system
>> also has OpenSSH 3.9p1. The working systems have OpenSSH 4.1p1 and 4.5p1
>> respectively.
>> 
>> 
>> What versions of Python and SSH are you running?
>> 
>> 
>> Andrew
>> 
>> Austin Clements wrote:
>> > The following bug is still present in rdiff-backup 1.1.15.  For
>> > convenience, I've attached the test script that causes rdiff-backup to
>> > fail.
>> > 
>> > Quoth myself on Sep 21 at  5:50 pm:
>> >> After a great deal of pain and suffering, I've managed to reduce this
>> >> problem to an easily reproducible test case.  Put 1999 files or more
>> >> in a directory and try to back that up, using a remote schema for both
>> >> the source and the destination.  Below is a script that will do the
>> >> whole process.
>> >> 
>> >> 
>> >> More specifically, (Globals.pipeline_max_length*4-1) is the cut off.
>> >> This formula is based on DestinationStruct.set_rorp_cache, which
>> >> initializes the CacheCollatedPostProcess.  I still really don't
>> >> understand what's going on here, but it has something to do with the
>> >> order that the CacheCollatedPostProcess cache is traversed on the
>> >> destination rdiff-backup server when the source is also an
>> >> rdiff-backup server.
>> >> 
>> >> I generated some simple traces of calls to important methods in the
>> >> cache and it looks like the order of traversal versus the order in
>> >> which methods like get_mirror_rorp are called on the destination is
>> >> radically different depending on whether or not the source uses a
>> >> remote schema.  I'm not sure, but I think each file in the cache only
>> >> gets examined once in the correct case (an index is retrieved from the
>> >> cache, then a bunch of methods are called to get more information
>> >> about it from the cache, then that index is never looked at again).
>> >> In the broken case with a source server, I think the cache is iterated
>> >> through once, and _then_ asked for information about the indexes that
>> >> were retrieved from it.  Thus, if the first traversal fills up the
>> >> cache and causes something to be evicted (ie, if there are 1999 files
>> >> or more), the "second" traversal won't be able to retrieve the
>> >> additional information and will raise a KeyError.
>> >> 
>> >> I'll keep poking at it, but at this point I'm in way, way over my head
>> >> on the details of how rdiff-backup works, so it's not likely I'll get
>> >> much further on my own.
>> >> 
>> >> 
>> >> #!/bin/bash
>> >> 
>> >> # Cause rdiff-backup to throw a KeyError
>> >> 
>> >> set -e
>> >> 
>> >> mkdir /tmp/lotsoffiles
>> >> for (( N=0 ; N < 500*4-1 ; N++ )); do
>> >>     touch /tmp/lotsoffiles/`printf '%04d\n' $N`
>> >> done
>> >> 
>> >> rdiff-backup \
>> >>     --terminal-verbosity 5 \
>> >>     --include /tmp/lotsoffiles \
>> >>     --exclude / \
>> >>     localhost::/ localhost::/tmp/lotsoffiles-backup
>> >> 
>> >> > 5) Provide your kernel version and details of the source and dest
>> >> > filesystems (type, any mountpoints involved in the backup).
>> >> 
>> >> Source:
>> >>   Kernel 2.6.18, Mostly Reiser (/) with a small dash of ext3 (/boot)
>> >> 
>> >> Destination:
>> >>   Kernel 2.6.21, Reiser mounted via a crypsetup mapper of a USB drive
>> >> 
>> >> I ran my above test script on my source machine (and it didn't include
>> >> /boot, so it was just Reiser).
>> > 
>> > 
>> > 
>> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> > 
>> > #!/bin/bash
>> > 
>> > # Cause rdiff-backup to throw a KeyError
>> > 
>> > set -e
>> > 
>> > # Create a directory to back up, containing
>> > # Globals.pipeline_max_length*4-1 (1999) files.  This is the exactly
>> > # cut off, if you make it 1998, everything works.
>> > mkdir /tmp/lotsoffiles
>> > for (( N=0 ; N < 500*4-1 ; N++ )); do
>> >     touch /tmp/lotsoffiles/`printf '%04d\n' $N`
>> > done
>> > 
>> > # Back up /tmp/lotsoffiles to /tmp/lotsoffiles-backup, using remote
>> > # access for both.
>> > rdiff-backup \
>> >     --terminal-verbosity 5 \
>> >     --include /tmp/lotsoffiles \
>> >     --exclude / \
>> >     localhost::/ localhost::/tmp/lotsoffiles-backup
> 

-- 
Andrew Ferguson - address@hidden