Hi,

Marty wrote on 2009-08-31 19:58:58 -0400 [Re: [BackupPC-users] Problems with 
hardlink-based backups...]:
> Peter Walter wrote:
> > [...]
> > If I had a method of simply backing up the changed files on the 
> > backup server, and a method of dumping the hardlinks in such a manner 
> > that they could be reconstituted later, then that would suffice.
> 
> I have not followed this thread

... or other threads ...

> so I may have missed somebody else making this point,

... or pointing out why it is wrong ...

> but recent versions of rsync have solved the memory hogging
> issue,

Nope, they have not, and they can never. Yes, protocol level 30 behaves
better, but you still need a full list of all inodes with more than one link
and one path to that inode. At some point in file count (which has *nothing*
to do with pool size ... 220MB, 220GB or 220TB could potentially be the same
number of files) it will stop working. Before that point it will work. It will
likely get slower and slower as it approaches the point. But the point exists,
and will continue to do so, as long as there is no syscall
link (dev_t device, ino_t inode, char * newpath) ...

Thinking about it, the rsync source structure is not confined to a single file
system, so rsync will actually need a (dev_t, ino_t) => path mapping.

Before protocol level 30, rsync will likely run out of memory for the file
list long before the inode table becomes a problem, so, yes, protocol level 30
is probably a big gain, but it still doesn't scale.

I wish I would find the time to add that to the wiki.

Regards,
Holger

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