Backup Central

(new to list)

I'm running something like:
$ sudo rdiff-backup /etc/ /var/history/etc

And I get the following:
ListError sysevent/devfsadm_event_channel/1 /etc/sysevent/devfsadm_event_channel/1
ListError sysevent/devfsadm_event_channel/reg_door /etc/sysevent/devfsadm_event_channel/reg_door
ListError sysevent/devfsadm_event_channel/piclevent_door /etc/sysevent/piclevent_door
ListError sysevent/devfsadm_event_channel/sysevent_door /etc/sysevent/sysevent_door
ListError sysevent/syseventconfd_event_channel/reg_door /etc/sysevent/syseventconfd_event_channel/reg_door

Looking at the files, they are "door" files. Neither "--exclude-device-files" nor "--exclude-special-files" excludes them. I haven't tried expressly excluding the files, but I'd rather not have to.

Should something --exclude-*-files be expected to handle these?

I'm using rdiff-backup 1.0.3 on SPARC Solaris 9.

TIA,

Tony Lewis

Tony and Robyn Lewis <gnutered < at > yahoo.com.au>
wrote the following on Tue, 29 Nov 2005 16:49:31 +1100
(new to list)

I'm running something like:
$ sudo rdiff-backup /etc/ /var/history/etc

And I get the following:
ListError sysevent/devfsadm_event_channel/1
/etc/sysevent/devfsadm_event_channel/1
ListError sysevent/devfsadm_event_channel/reg_door
/etc/sysevent/devfsadm_event_channel/reg_door
ListError sysevent/devfsadm_event_channel/piclevent_door
/etc/sysevent/piclevent_door
ListError sysevent/devfsadm_event_channel/sysevent_door
/etc/sysevent/sysevent_door
ListError sysevent/syseventconfd_event_channel/reg_door
/etc/sysevent/syseventconfd_event_channel/reg_door

Looking at the files, they are "door" files. Neither
"--exclude-device-files" nor "--exclude-special-files" excludes them. I
haven't tried expressly excluding the files, but I'd rather not have to.

Should something --exclude-*-files be expected to handle these?

I'm using rdiff-backup 1.0.3 on SPARC Solaris 9.

There's no specific option to exclude door files, but a ListError has
the same effect---rdiff-backup will act as if those files don't exist.
(There's no door-specific code in rdiff-backup so it doesn't know they
are special files, only that it can't handle them.)

So anyway, just ignore those ListErrors.


--
Ben Escoto

Ben Escoto wrote: Tony and Robyn Lewis <gnutered < at > yahoo.com.au> ([email]gnutered < at > yahoo.com.au[/email])
wrote the following on Tue, 29 Nov 2005 16:49:31 +1100

Looking at the files, they are "door" files. Neither
"--exclude-device-files" nor "--exclude-special-files" excludes them. I
haven't tried expressly excluding the files, but I'd rather not have to.

Should something --exclude-*-files be expected to handle these?

I'm using rdiff-backup 1.0.3 on SPARC Solaris 9.

There's no specific option to exclude door files, but a ListError has
the same effect---rdiff-backup will act as if those files don't exist.
(There's no door-specific code in rdiff-backup so it doesn't know they
are special files, only that it can't handle them.)

So anyway, just ignore those ListErrors.

Would it be a good idea to handle these without displaying an error (i.e. putting in some code to handle ListErrors)?

In my context, I'm planning to use rdiff-backup in cron, to do regular backups of, say, /etc, and I'd like to *not* have to parse the response to mask out false positive problems.

Tony

Tony and Robyn Lewis <gnutered < at > yahoo.com.au>
wrote the following on Mon, 12 Dec 2005 09:46:59 +1100

Would it be a good idea to handle these without displaying an error
(i.e. putting in some code to handle ListErrors)?

Well there is code to handle ListErrors (e.g. the code that writes
"ListError" on your screen ;-P). This behavior is intentional, and
more documentation on the different kinds of errors and what they mean
is at http://rdiff-backup.nongnu.org/error_policy.html

In my context, I'm planning to use rdiff-backup in cron, to do
regular backups of, say, /etc, and I'd like to *not* have to parse
the response to mask out false positive problems.

I see your problem, but I'm not sure how rdiff-backup could
distinguish these errors from its point of view. The reason it flags
a ListError is because it sees a file with a type it doesn't
recognize, and thus can't back this file up. In your case, you don't
need these files backed up, and could just exclude them. However,
maybe someone else needs them backed up, and these ListError messages
would be informative to them.


--
Ben Escoto

Ben Escoto wrote:


I see your problem, but I'm not sure how rdiff-backup could
distinguish these errors from its point of view. The reason it flags
a ListError is because it sees a file with a type it doesn't
recognize, and thus can't back this file up. In your case, you don't
need these files backed up, and could just exclude them. However,
maybe someone else needs them backed up, and these ListError messages
would be informative to them.



I would like to exclude them, but not explicitly by name. Is it
suitable to consider them device files (or some other special file) so
that --exclude-device-files or --exclude-special-files will filter them
out silently?

Tony

Tony and Robyn Lewis <gnutered < at > yahoo.com.au>
wrote the following on Mon, 12 Dec 2005 13:02:58 +1100

I would like to exclude them, but not explicitly by name. Is it
suitable to consider them device files (or some other special file)
so that --exclude-device-files or --exclude-special-files will
filter them out silently?

Hmm, currently this isn't possible. (It's not a bad idea though.)


--
Ben Escoto

Ben Escoto wrote: Tony and Robyn Lewis <gnutered < at > yahoo.com.au> ([email]gnutered < at > yahoo.com.au[/email])
wrote the following on Mon, 12 Dec 2005 13:02:58 +1100
I would like to exclude them, but not explicitly by name. Is it
suitable to consider them device files (or some other special file)
so that --exclude-device-files or --exclude-special-files will
filter them out silently?

Hmm, currently this isn't possible. (It's not a bad idea though.)


Does it require a new type in rpath.py, and the ability to identify it? Or is there more that I'm missing? (this from a 30 second look at the source, pardon my naievity)

Tony

Tony and Robyn Lewis <gnutered < at > yahoo.com.au>
wrote the following on Mon, 12 Dec 2005 17:04:36 +1100

Does it require a new type in rpath.py, and the ability to identify
it? Or is there more that I'm missing? (this from a 30 second look
at the source, pardon my naievity)

Yes, I see two possibilities offhand. You could add some Sun specific
code so it can fully back up door files. This would require editing
the c_make_file_dict function in cmodule, and then making sure the
relevant functions in rpath.py could all handle door type objects.
Then you could edit selection.py and add the door file type to the
files matched by --[include|exclude]-special-files.

The other option would be to add a new "unknown type". I think
currently it's impossible to create RPaths that are not of a
recognized type. (For instance try running

python -c 'from rdiff_backup.C import *; print make_file_dict("path/to/door/file")'

and see what it says.) So you could edit rpath.py to catch the
exception make_file_dict turns up, and instead of aborting, make a new
"unknown" type. Then this unknown rpath could be included/excluded by
the selection rules. The catch though would be figuring out what to
do if an unknown file type _weren't_ excluded. For all the other file
types, rdiff-backup knows how to make a file of that type. But it
wouldn't know how to make a file of the "unknown" type, so at that
point it should probably raise a ListError. Still, the unknown type
would remain a special kind of file type that can only be read, not
written, so you'd have to be careful since the code may currently
assume that everything file type can be copied.


--
Ben Escoto