[rdiff-backup-users] Encountering the NFS "Directory not empty" error

[Nick Parker]

After using rdiff for daily backups for the last couple weeks, I've run 
into the problem described at 
http://cvs.lp.se/doc/rdiff-backup/FAQ.html#dir_not_empty

It appears to be triggered by removal of a directory in the production 
copy, which creates problems when the backup copy tries to duplicate the 
removal.

I am not able to perform the backup outside of NFS, as we are doing this 
in case of a local server failure while also conforming to existing 
internal network infrastructure. Is there a known workaround for this 
issue? Has it been resolved in the 1.1 series? If the answer to these is 
"no", are there alternative backup systems similar in functionality to 
rdiff-backup? (preferably with support for diffs of binary files, like 
what rdiff-backup uses)

Thanks!

Nick

This is the error itself:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/rdiff-backup", line 23, in ?
    rdiff_backup.Main.Main(sys.argv[1:])
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/rdiff_backup/Main.py", line 
283, in Main
    take_action(rps)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/rdiff_backup/Main.py", line 
253, in take_action
    elif action == "backup": Backup(rps[0], rps[1])
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/rdiff_backup/Main.py", line 
303, in Backup
    backup.Mirror_and_increment(rpin, rpout, incdir)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/rdiff_backup/backup.py", line 
51, in Mirror_and_increment
    DestS.patch_and_increment(dest_rpath, source_diffiter, inc_rpath)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/rdiff_backup/backup.py", line 
229, in patch_and_increment
    ITR(diff.index, diff)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/rdiff_backup/rorpiter.py", 
line 281, in __call__
    if self.finish_branches(index) is None:
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/rdiff_backup/rorpiter.py", 
line 233, in finish_branches
    to_be_finished.end_process()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/rdiff_backup/backup.py", line 
574, in end_process
    self.base_rp.rmdir()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/rdiff_backup/rpath.py", line 
806, in rmdir
    self.conn.os.rmdir(self.path)
OSError: [Errno 39] Directory not empty: 
'/backup/trantor/project_local/old/trac_data/templates/0.8'
Exception exceptions.TypeError: "'NoneType' object is not callable" in 
<bound method GzipFile.__del__ of <gzip open file 
'/backup/trantor/project_local/rdiff-backup-data/file_statistics.2005-10-29T16:50:49-04:00.data.gz', 
mode 'wb' at 0xb7bb6f50 -0x4842b234>> ignored
Exception exceptions.TypeError: "'NoneType' object is not callable" in 
<bound method GzipFile.__del__ of <gzip open file 
'/backup/trantor/project_local/rdiff-backup-data/error_log.2005-10-29T16:50:49-04:00.data.gz', 
mode 'wb' at 0xb7ea1f08 -0x4842b074>> ignored
Exception exceptions.TypeError: "'NoneType' object is not callable" in 
<bound method GzipFile.__del__ of <gzip open file 
'/backup/trantor/project_local/rdiff-backup-data/mirror_metadata.2005-10-29T16:50:49-04:00.snapshot.gz', 
mode 'wb' at 0xb7bb6f98 -0x48427a14>> ignored