anandiwp AT gmail DOT com wrote at about 21:17:33 +0000 on Tuesday, December 
23, 2008:
 > Found the problem and its solution already as mentioned in my earlier post. 
 > The first time ssh creates and entry in known_host file, which was missing 
 > and hence the error.

This problem comes up time and again for both new and old users. I
remember I one time switched machines or ip addresses and I got the
generic "read 4 bytes error" or something and it took me a while to
figure out the cause. In fact, the error is almost unavoidable on many
ssh setups where the first time login requires confirmation of the
fingerprint. The error is compounded by the fact that it is far from
intuitively obvious that you need to login manually over ssh as user
backuppc to confirm the fingerprint. 

Perhaps, a line could be added to the error
message saying something like "check to make sure user 'backuppc' is
authorized to connect to 'host' via ssh. Try typing 'ssh
backuppc@host -i id_rsa_file' to verify that your login is setup
correctly" (note I may have the ssh line wrong but you get the picture).

Even better, backuppc should be able to detect the specific
"known_hosts" error (either requesting verify of the fingerprint or
warning that the fingerprint has changed) and signal that
specifically.

In summary, the combination of a common (and understandable) newbie
error combined with a completely non-informative error message is a
situation that can and should be fixed.



 > 
 > --
 > Thanks and Regards,
 > 
 > Anand Gupta
 > 
 > -----Original Message-----
 > From: Ray Todd Stevens <raytodd AT kiva DOT net>
 > 
 > Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2008 16:10:50 
 > To: <backuppc-users AT lists.sourceforge DOT net>
 > Subject: Re: [BackupPC-users] BackupPC-users Digest, Vol 32, Issue 69
 > 
 > 
 > It sounds like the backuppc side is setup properly or close to it.   The logs
 > here are really not telling us anything except that it didn't work.   Do you 
 > have
 > any logs from the client side.   I don't know why it is succeeding when run 
 > from
 > the command line.   But I would think that the logs from the client might 
 > give
 > some great clues.
 > 
 > 
 > >Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2008 01:11:32 +0530
 > >From: Anand Gupta anandiwp AT gmail DOT com>
 > >Subject: [BackupPC-users] problem with linux client
 > >To: "General list for user discussion,      questions and support"
 > >    backuppc-users AT lists.sourceforge DOT net>
 > >Message-ID: 49513EEC.5020005 AT gmail DOT com>
 > >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
 > >
 > >
 > >I tried to add a linux client today to my test environment and this is 
 > >what i get in the logs
 > >
 > >Contents of file /backup/backups/pc/172.20.0.3/XferLOG.bad.z, modified 
 > >2008-12-24 00:44:07 (Extracting only Errors)
 > >
 > >full backup started for directory /
 > >Running: /usr/bin/ssh -p 11000 -q -x -l root 172.20.0.3 /usr/bin/rsync 
 > >--server --sender --numeric-ids --perms --owner --group -D --links 
 > >--hard-links --times --block-size=2048 --recursive --ignore-times . /
 > >Xfer PIDs are now 1373
 > >Read EOF: Connection reset by peer
 > >Tried again: got 0 bytes
 > >Done: 0 files, 0 bytes
 > >Got fatal error during xfer (Unable to read 4 bytes)
 > >Backup aborted (Unable to read 4 bytes)
 > >Not saving this as a partial backup since it has fewer files than the 
 > >prior one (got 0 and 0 files versus 0)
 > >
 > >
 > >On the console, i switched to backuppc user, and then ran the above 
 > >command without any errors.
 > >
 > >/usr/bin/ssh -p 11000 -q -x -l root 172.20.0.3 /usr/bin/rsync --server 
 > >--sender --numeric-ids --perms --owner --group -D --links --hard-links 
 > >--times --block-size=2048 --recursive --ignore-times . /
 > >
 > >However i do not understand the above error. Here is extract from the 
 > >LOG file
 > >
 > >2008-12-24 00:42:16 full backup started for directory /
 > >2008-12-24 00:42:17 Got fatal error during xfer (Unable to read 4 bytes)
 > >2008-12-24 00:42:22 Backup aborted (Unable to read 4 bytes)
 > >2008-12-24 00:44:01 full backup started for directory /
 > >2008-12-24 00:44:02 Got fatal error during xfer (Unable to read 4 bytes)
 > >2008-12-24 00:44:07 Backup aborted (Unable to read 4 bytes)
 > >
 > >Any ideas on what could be happening here ?
 > >
 > >--
 > >Thanks and Regards,
 > >
 > >Anand
 > 
 > 
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 > 

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