Re: [rdiff-backup-users] CIFS filesystem and symbolic links to other directories

[Andrew Ferguson]

On Jul 6, 2008, at 6:19 AM, Ian Jones wrote:

> Hello. I have the following problem.
>
> I am trying to use rdiff-backup to backup from a Linux (Debian  
> lenny) machine to a CIFS mounted filesystem (which is located on a  
> Droboshare - http://www.drobo.com.)
>
> # python -V
> Python 2.5.2
> # rdiff-backup -V
> rdiff-backup 1.1.16
>
>
> It works fine if I use --exclude-symbolic-links, but without this I  
> get the errors posted below.
>
> Specifically:
>
> If I try to backup a directory containing symbolic links to the same  
> directory, it works:
> # ls –l
> total 0
> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 2008-07-06 04:58 index.html
> lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2008-07-06 05:03 test -> index.html
> # rdiff-backup --no-hard-links . /drobo/MX/www
> # ls -l /drobo/MX/www/
> total 4
> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 2008-07-06 04:58 index.html
> drwx------ 3 root daemon 0 2008-07-06 05:22 rdiff-backup-data
> lrwxrwxrwx 1 root daemon 10 2008-07-06 05:22 test -> index.html
>
> However, if I link to a file in another directory:
> # echo "test" > ../test2
> # ln -s ../test2
> # ls –l
> total 0
> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 2008-07-06 04:58 index.html
> lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2008-07-06 05:03 test -> index.html
> lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 8 2008-07-06 05:27 test2 -> ../test2
> # rdiff-backup --no-hard-links . /drobo/MX/www
> Exception '[Errno 2] No such file or directory' raised of class  
> '<type 'exceptions.OSError'>':


Hi Ian,

That's a pretty interesting bug you have there. I'd say the chance is  
pretty good that it is even a bug in CIFS and not rdiff-backup. But,  
to be safe, can you try a few things?

1) Run rdiff-backup with '-v5'  .... this will print out the name of  
each file as it is being backed-up, just so we can make sure that it  
is failing when manipulating the file 'test2'. This will also print  
out information about which filesystem abilities rdiff-backup has  
detected, please send those along as well.

2) Try running with CIFS's Linux extensions disabled. To do this,  
unmount the CIFS share, then do:

$ echo 0 > /proc/fs/cifs/LinuxExtensionsEnabled

as root. After doing that, remount the filesystem and try again.  
Again, run rdiff-backup with -v5 and send along the output.

3) Lastly, what CIFS version are you running? You can get that from  
`cat /proc/fs/cifs/DebugData`



thanks,
Andrew