Re: [rdiff-backup-users] Fatal Error: Bad rdiff-backup-data dir on destination side

[Maarten Bezemer]

Hi,

Judging from the information in your email, you have been doing the first
"full" backup of your data for 6 hours, and then the connection was
broken. As suggested by Dean Gaudet, you can delete the rdiff-backup-data
within your backup tree (so not the files transferred during the 6 hours,
but only the rdiff-backup-data subdirectory!), and restart rdiff-backup.
It will then continue where it left off, so you will not lose your 6 hours
of data transfer.

Once the initial backup is done, regular "incremental" sessions take much
less time. I don't recall exactly how much time my initial backup took,
but it took quite a few hours. Incremental backups (running daily) usually
take no more than some 10 minutes. So, depending on the reliability of
your cable modem connection, you may not even need extra measures to get a
reliable backup.


The Wiki page you refered to earlier is only a suggestion for easing
incremental backups over unreliable links, but the way I understand it, it
may take twice the space of the data being backed up, plus the space
needed for incremental diffs.
Hm... now that I think about it, it may be possible to hardlink the
rdiff-repository (excluding the rdiff-backup-data directory), running
remote rsync on that tree, possibly restarting that rsync multiple times
before it finishes cleanly, and calling rdiff-backup locally on the
rsynced tree. That way, it would only need 1 copy of the repository, plus
two times the changes.

It would be great if the scripts discussed in the wiki page were also
available. Can someone (preferably the author of the page) please arrange
this?

Regards,
 Maarten


On Tue, 21 Mar 2006, Noah wrote:

> 
> I am hoping there is a way around starting the backup process over again.  I
> had  it running for about 6 hours and then the connection to my home server
> was lost.  Any clues if there is anything I can do instead of completely
> blowing away the rdiff-backup-data directory.  That essentially means I have
> to start the process over completely.  Also I am wondering if there is
> something that I can do in the future since I could start the process again
> and my cable modem server at home becomes isolated.  How can I easily recover
> from the situation without having to start completely over.
> 
> 
> 
> --- snip ---
> 
> Fatal Error: Bad rdiff-backup-data dir on destination side
> 
> The rdiff-backup data directory
> /home/backup/typhoon/rdiff-backup-data
> exists, but we cannot find a valid current_mirror marker.  You can
> avoid this message by removing the rdiff-backup-data directory;
> however any data in it will be lost.
> 
> Probably this error was caused because the first rdiff-backup session
> into a new directory failed.  If this is the case it is safe to delete
> the rdiff-backup-data directory because there is no important
> information in it.
> 
> 
> --- snip ---
> 
> here is the command I use:
> 
> 
> /usr/local/bin/rdiff-backup --force --print-statistics
> --exclude-globbing-filelist /root/cron_scripts/rdiff-backup.exclude /
> address@hidden::/home/backup/backup_dir
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> rdiff-backup-users mailing list at address@hidden
> http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/rdiff-backup-users
> Wiki URL: http://rdiff-backup.solutionsfirst.com.au/index.php/RdiffBackupWiki
>