Backup Central

I just heard about rdiff-backup, and am testing version 1.0.1 on OS X
10.4.2. It looks like rdiff-backup needs to be run with two switches
set (--no-carbonfile --override-chars-to-quote ''). What does the --
no-carbonfile switch do? What info is missing from my backup if I
use this switch?

If I don't use the --no-carbonfile switch, I get errors like:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/sw/bin/rdiff-backup", line 23, in ?
rdiff_backup.Main.Main(sys.argv[1:])
File "/sw/lib/python2.4/site-packages/rdiff_backup/Main.py", line
283, in Main
take_action(rps)
File "/sw/lib/python2.4/site-packages/rdiff_backup/Main.py", line
253, in take_action
elif action == "backup": Backup(rps[0], rps[1])
File "/sw/lib/python2.4/site-packages/rdiff_backup/Main.py", line
306, in Backup
backup.Mirror(rpin, rpout)
File "/sw/lib/python2.4/site-packages/rdiff_backup/backup.py",
line 38, in Mirror
DestS.patch(dest_rpath, source_diffiter)
File "/sw/lib/python2.4/site-packages/rdiff_backup/backup.py",
line 218, in patch
ITR(diff.index, diff)
File "/sw/lib/python2.4/site-packages/rdiff_backup/rorpiter.py",
line 285, in __call__
last_branch.fast_process(*args)
File "/sw/lib/python2.4/site-packages/rdiff_backup/backup.py",
line 477, in fast_process
if self.patch_to_temp(rp, diff_rorp, tf):
File "/sw/lib/python2.4/site-packages/rdiff_backup/backup.py",
line 504, in patch_to_temp
rpath.copy_attribs(diff_rorp, new)
File "/sw/lib/python2.4/site-packages/rdiff_backup/rpath.py", line
160, in copy_attribs
rpout.write_carbonfile(rpin.get_carbonfile())
File "/sw/lib/python2.4/site-packages/rdiff_backup/rpath.py", line
1158, in write_carbonfile
finderinfo.Creator = cfile['creator']
TypeError: unsubscriptable object
Exception exceptions.TypeError: "'NoneType' object is not callable"
in <bound method GzipFile.__del__ of <gzip open file '/Volumes/Ext_BU/
Users/kwh/rdiffbu/rdiff-backup-data/file_statistics.
2005-10-09T11:28:05-04:00.data.gz', mode 'wb' at 0x79a0b0 0x7a7c10>>
ignored
Exception exceptions.TypeError: "'NoneType' object is not callable"
in <bound method GzipFile.__del__ of <gzip open file '/Volumes/Ext_BU/
Users/kwh/rdiffbu/rdiff-backup-data/error_log.
2005-10-09T11:28:05-04:00.data.gz', mode 'wb' at 0x38a380 0x7a7b48>>
ignored
Exception exceptions.TypeError: "'NoneType' object is not callable"
in <bound method GzipFile.__del__ of <gzip open file '/Volumes/Ext_BU/
Users/kwh/rdiffbu/rdiff-backup-data/mirror_metadata.
2005-10-09T11:28:05-04:00.snapshot.gz', mode 'wb' at 0x79a0f8
0x7a7c38>> ignored

========
If I don't use the --override-chars-to-quote '' switch, the upper
case characters in paths are replaced by ;XXX constructs, where XXX
is the ASCII code for the character. This then leads to an error
with a too long file name. I can see why this behaviour is needed,
if backing up from other file systems to a Mac file system, due to
the case insensitivity of the later. But it shouldn't be needed if
backing up from a case insensitive file system.

It would be useful to add both the above switches to the
documentation, with a reference that they may be needed if backing up
from an HFS+ file system on OS X.

Kevin Horton
Ottawa, Canada

Kevin Horton <khorton01 < at > rogers.com>
wrote the following on Sun, 9 Oct 2005 13:45:13 -0400
I just heard about rdiff-backup, and am testing version 1.0.1 on OS X
10.4.2. It looks like rdiff-backup needs to be run with two switches
set (--no-carbonfile --override-chars-to-quote ''). What does the --
no-carbonfile switch do? What info is missing from my backup if I
use this switch?

Supposedly rdiff-backup backs up Mac OS X carbonfile information. I'm
not sure what this is, just that it seems to cause bugs :-)

Maybe someone who knows something about Mac OS could look at this code
snippet:

def get_carbonfile(self):
"""Return resource fork data, loading from filesystem if
necessary."""
from Carbon.File import FSSpec
import MacOS
try: return self.data['cfile']
except KeyError: pass

try:
fsobj = FSSpec(self.path)
finderinfo = fsobj.FSpGetFInfo()
cfile = {'creator': finderinfo.Creator,
'type': finderinfo.Type,
'location': finderinfo.Location,
'flags': finderinfo.Flags}
self.data['carbonfile'] = cfile
return cfile
except MacOS.Error:
self.data['carbonfile'] = None
return self.data['carbonfile']

What would cause a MacOS.Error? And does it happen just on certain
strange files, or all the time? Should I disable carbonfile support
by default, or is this an important feature?

If I don't use the --override-chars-to-quote '' switch, the upper
case characters in paths are replaced by ;XXX constructs, where XXX
is the ASCII code for the character. This then leads to an error
with a too long file name. I can see why this behaviour is needed,
if backing up from other file systems to a Mac file system, due to
the case insensitivity of the later. But it shouldn't be needed if
backing up from a case insensitive file system.

Well it's hard to determine if a file system is case sensitive unless
you can write to it (so right now the source isn't checked for case
sensitivity).

Maybe resource fork ability could be a good substitute for handling
the Mac OS case: if the source and destination both support resource
forks, then disable quoting?


--
Ben Escoto