Re: [rdiff-backup-users] Re: Fatal Error: Source is not a directory [Scanned]

[Ty! Boyack]

I think Jason's suggestion will still work for you.  You'll just have to 
change directory inside your script.

A small script like:
/
#!/bin/bash
cd /home/user/fileToBackup
rdiff-backup . /backup/directory
/
is certainly valid.  Of course, that can be part of a larger script.  If 
you are worried about the rest of your script having troubles because 
you have changed directories, you can follow it with 'cd -' 
(cd<space><dash>) which in most shells will return you to your last 
directory -- in essence it will negate the previous 'cd 
/home/user/fileToBackup' command.

You say that the link changes frequently -- this may be the safest way 
then.  The only time the link will be resolved is during the 'cd' 
command.  After that if the link changes while you are doing your backup 
it won't matter to rdiff-backup. 

If you don't cd and tell rdiff-backup to follow the symlink, and the 
symlink changed during rdiff-backup's run, it might make a mess of 
things.  I don't know enough of rdiff-backup's internals to know if that 
would be safe or not, but I think this way would help ensure that you 
are not going to get in trouble from that.

-Ty!

Dave wrote:
> Hi Jason,
> That's very helpful info. I can't just cd to the directory because 
> this backup is happening in a script and the actual directory (the one 
> pointed to by the symlink) changes frequently.
>
> My current version of Ubuntu is using Python 2.5.2. I will look into 
> upgrading. (I'm planning on installing Jaunty when it is released.)
>
> Regards,
> Dave
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 8:11 PM, Jason Spalding <address@hidden 
> <mailto:address@hidden>> wrote:
>
>     I was going to suggest this but it doesn't work for me on my OS X
>     system.
>     Source diving lead me to the lstat() function in
>     backup_check_dirs, but the
>     error reported is for the isdir() function directly below it
>     which, for all
>     intents and purposes, should operate correctly (it's a python
>     call, not
>     rdiff's). Perhaps something for the dev team to look at later.
>
>     In the meantime, a workaround like so should suffice:
>
>     cd /home/user/fileToBackup/
>     rdiff-backup . /backup/directory
>
>     Which should solve your problem.
>
>     A few notes on looking into it:
>
>     The isdir function is documented like so at docs.python.org
>     <http://docs.python.org>:
>
>     os.path.isdir(path)¶
>        Return True if path is an existing directory. This follows symbolic
>     links, so both islink() and isdir() can be true for the same path.
>
>     However this is for Python version 2.6.2 - my version of OS X is a 2.5
>     installation and as far as I am aware Apple have no plans to
>     upgrade this in
>     the foreseeable future. As such the older version of python may be
>     what is
>     causing the no-follow on the symlink for directory testing. I
>     couldn't find
>     the return codes for the lstat function (I've never enjoyed python
>     documentation), nor the 2.5 docs (though I could have googled
>     further) but
>     it would appear that when lstat() is not following symbolic links, it
>     returns everything ok - thus falling through to isdir().
>
>     The above cd / rdiff combination worked just fine for me though.
>
>     Cheers
>
>     Jason
>     (Not an rdiff-backup developer)
>
>     On 22/4/09 9:27 AM, "Ty! Boyack" <address@hidden
>     <mailto:address@hidden>> wrote:
>
>     > With many programs the answer is to simply add a slash to the end of
>     > your source directory.  For example if your command was:
>     >
>     > rdiff-backup /home/user/fileToBackup  /backup/directory
>     >
>     > then just change it to:
>     >
>     > rdiff-backup /home/user/filesToBackup/ /backup/directory
>     >
>     > the name 'fileToBackup' is a symlink, but when you append a slash it
>     > forces it to resolve to the destination of the symlink.
>     >
>     > Not certain it works here, but I'd try that first.
>     >
>     > -Ty!
>     >
>     >
>     > Dave wrote:
>     >> Anyone know if there is a way to backup using a symlink as the
>     source?
>     >> Thanks
>     >>
>     >> On Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 5:41 PM, Dave <address@hidden
>     <mailto:address@hidden>
>     >> <mailto:address@hidden
>     <mailto:address@hidden>>> wrote:
>     >>
>     >>     I called rdiff-backup with a symlink as the source I wanted to
>     >>     backup and I got this error:
>     >>
>     >>     Fatal Error: Source /home/user/filesToBackup is not a directory
>     >>
>     >>     Is there a way to backup a symlink like this? Thanks.
>     >>
>     >>     Dave
>     >>
>     >>
>     >>
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>     >>
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>     >
>
>
>
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>
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 Ty! Boyack
 NREL Unix Network Manager
 address@hidden
 (970) 491-1186
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