Re: [rdiff-backup-users] KeyError exception

[David]

On 9/7/07, Austin Clements <address@hidden> wrote:
> I recently changed my configuration for rdiff-backup 1.1.14 and have
> started getting the following KeyError exception during the backup
> process (the verbosity level 5 log can be found at the end).
>

Using a rdiff-backup session to relay between 2 other rdiff-backup
sessions is an unusual usage IMO. I don't think that other tools like
scp or rsync even support that at all (from my basic testing in the
past). My experience (with various tools) has been that either you
need to setup a mountpoint for at least one of the remote endpoints,
or preferably use the tool with 1 local and 1 remote endpoint, or 2
local endpoints.

What I'm saying is it's quite possible that rdiff-backup's logic for
this case (relaying between 2 remote hosts) is buggy/not fully tested.
I'm not an rdiff-backup dev so I can't say for sure.

A possible work-around for you is to setup rdiff-backup under
/etc/sudoers, and configure your sudoers so that your backup user can
run 'sudo rdiff-backup' without a password. The security implications
are about the same (root user rdiff-backup session manipulating the
root of your fs, ie no chroot). My own backups use this configuration
(mainly to preserve file ownerships on local files when I run rsync at
various points).

But if you would like this particular bug to be fixed, then please
follow the steps below. I am not a rdiff-backup dev but they will
surely find this info useful.

1) Check that your source and dest rdiff-backup versions are exactly
the same version.

2) Create the smallest possible test case that has this problem and
post details of your setup.

3) If practical, try testing with the rdiff-backup stable version
(1.0.5), and see if it has the same problem. Your version, 1.1.14 is
the current development/unstable version.

4) Give more information on the change you made to your config which
started creating this problem.

5) Provide your kernel version and details of the source and dest
filesystems (type, any mountpoints involved in the backup).

David.