[rdiff-backup-users] Re: "Truncated header string" error, how to diagnose?

[Chris G]

On Sun, May 11, 2008 at 10:07:56AM +0100, Chris G wrote:
> On Sun, May 11, 2008 at 09:43:36AM +0100, Chris G wrote:
> > 
> > The only thing that *might* be significant is that the rdiff-backup
> > 1.1.5 installation on the remote is installed in my account there
> 
> Typo of course, 1.1.15.
> 
> > whereas the 1.0.5 was a root/system installion.
> > 
> I think that's the problem but I can't work out how to fix it, any
> rdiff-backup command, e.g.:-
> 
>     ssh address@hidden rdiff-backup --version
> 
> simply returns with no output.  All other commands executed like this
> (at least all the ones I've tried) work fine.
> 
Well I finally got it sorted!  Much of the problem was of my own
doing, the backup that had been working with rdiff-backup 1.0.5 was to
a different remote computer!  Both the old and new remote destinations
are computers on my hosting company's network, my login is identical
on both and my home directory is common to both systems.  *However*
(and this is what caused most of my grief!) the old destination was a
BSD system and the new destination is Linux.  In addition, to muddy
the waters further, I have a user space installation of Python 2.5.2
on the new system.  So when I installed rdiff-backup 1.1.15 on the new
system and then my cron jobs were still trying to back up to the old
system surprisingly enough it didn't work!  :-)

I've now cleared up the mess a little, removed all the BSD stuff (that
I can find) and have done a clean installation of 1.1.15 on the Linux
remote. My backups now work, though I do have to use "--remote-schema
'ssh -C %s /home/isbd/bin/rdiff-backup --server' to make it work.  I'm
not quite clear why this should be as my PATH includes /home/isbd/bin
but it's not a big problem.

-- 
Chris Green