Re: [rdiff-backup-users] rdiff-backup 1.1.17 released

[Oliver Hookins]

On Mon Jul 21, 2008 at 15:42:48 -0400, Andrew Ferguson wrote:
> On Jul 21, 2008, at 12:19 AM, Oliver Hookins wrote:
>
>> On Fri Jul 18, 2008 at 15:38:33 +1000, Oliver Hookins wrote:
>>> On Thu Jul 17, 2008 at 09:09:40 -0400, Andrew Ferguson wrote:
>>>
>>>> The plan is to release this version as a new stable branch, 1.2.0 in
>>>> about ten days.
>>>>
>>>> Before then, I am interested in exploring the SELinux issue and  
>>>> Oliver
>>>> Hookins' problems. With respect to SELinux, rdiff-backup just relies
>>>> upon Python's distutils to build the libraries, so it will require  
>>>> some
>>>> digging to see why the SELinux chcon command is needed.
>>>
>>> Well I'm happy to provide any diagnostic information you would like  
>>> to aid
>>> with this. Part of the problem to me seems like there is no logging  
>>> on the
>>> client side - so if something goes wrong that isn't communicated to  
>>> the
>>> server you have a difficult time finding out what went wrong. But I  
>>> guess
>>> this wouldn't be trivial to implement.
>>
>> This is very bizarre, a handful of my machines all failed the backup  
>> last
>> night with the same error which is one I haven't seen before:
>>
>> Traceback (most recent call last):
>>  File "/usr/bin/rdiff-backup", line 23, in ?
>>    rdiff_backup.Main.error_check_Main(sys.argv[1:])
>>  File "/usr/lib64/python2.4/site-packages/rdiff_backup/Main.py", line 
>> 302,
>> in error_check_Main
>>    try: Main(arglist)
>>  File "/usr/lib64/python2.4/site-packages/rdiff_backup/Main.py", line 
>> 319,
>> in Main
>>    rps = map(SetConnections.cmdpair2rp, cmdpairs)
>>  File "/usr/lib64/python2.4/site-packages/rdiff_backup/ 
>> SetConnections.py",
>> line 76, in cmdpair2rp
>>    if cmd: conn = init_connection(cmd)
>>  File "/usr/lib64/python2.4/site-packages/rdiff_backup/ 
>> SetConnections.py",
>> line 146, in init_connection
>>    check_connection_version(conn, remote_cmd)
>>  File "/usr/lib64/python2.4/site-packages/rdiff_backup/ 
>> SetConnections.py",
>> line 154, in check_connection_version
>>    try: remote_version = conn.Globals.get('version')
>>  File "/usr/lib64/python2.4/site-packages/rdiff_backup/connection.py", 
>> line
>> 447, in __call__
>>    return apply(self.connection.reval, (self.name,) + args)
>>  File "/usr/lib64/python2.4/site-packages/rdiff_backup/connection.py", 
>> line
>> 367, in reval
>>    result = self.get_response(req_num)
>>  File "/usr/lib64/python2.4/site-packages/rdiff_backup/connection.py", 
>> line
>> 314, in get_response
>>    try: req_num, object = self._get()
>>  File "/usr/lib64/python2.4/site-packages/rdiff_backup/connection.py", 
>> line
>> 239, in _get
>>    data = self._read(length)
>>  File "/usr/lib64/python2.4/site-packages/rdiff_backup/connection.py", 
>> line
>> 209, in _read
>>    try: return self.inpipe.read(length)
>> OverflowError: requested number of bytes is more than a Python string 
>> can
>> hold
>> Fatal Error: Lost connection to the remote system
>>
>> Any ideas about this one?
>
>
> Oh, I think I've seen this before. I believe you have made a  
> configuration mistake with your shell or some such -- I believe that  
> rdiff-backup is not being found in the path and starting properly. You  
> should manually SSH in and see what's going on. Also, the ' -v9 ' option 
> might help.
>
> That traceback indicates that rdiff-backup on the source side has asked 
> the destination side for its version number. The destination side 
> responded with something entirely bogus. I seem to recall seeing that 
> happen when rdiff-backup was not properly setup on the destination side. 
> Instead of rdiff-backup running like usual, the shell had responded with 
> "Can't find rdiff-backup, please ask the system administrator" or some 
> non-sense like that.

Hmm... nothing in the setup of either the sources or destinations have
changed as far as I know. This is what the destination prints out with -v 9:

Wed Jul 23 10:21:42 2008  Using rdiff-backup version 1.1.16
Wed Jul 23 10:21:42 2008  Executing ssh address@hidden rdiff-backup --server
Wed Jul 23 10:21:42 2008  Client sending (0): ConnectionRequest: Globals.get 
with 1 arguments
Wed Jul 23 10:21:42 2008  Client sending (0): 'version'
Wed Jul 23 10:21:42 2008  Exception 'requested number of bytes is more than a 
Python string can hold' raised of class 'exceptions.OverflowError':

I have strace output from the source but it doesn't really show much.
Any other diagnostics I can perform?

-- 
Regards,
Oliver Hookins