Jon Craig <cannedspam.cant <at> gmail.com> writes:

> Maybe you better explain what you know and what you've tried so we are
> not forced to
> go over ground you may already have covered.

> Your very first post calls BackupPC's methods fragile and complains about a
> documented requirement of the login process.

There's no question RsyncP is fragile, hence the problem I reported (that rsync
does not exhibit).  Since it's clear no-one here wants bug-reports, I wont
provide any more.

> Maybe my education is lacking.  Could you explain to me how rsync
> avoids checksumming the entire filesystem without using file
> timestamps to include / exclude files and how backuppc's
> full/incremental behaves differently.

After running the first (full) backup, you can use --link-dest=$LAST_FOLDER to
only update the files which have changed (size & timestamp) and just linking all
others (ala IncrFill=1).  You can do this, indefinitely.  You do not need to
re-checksum everything the next week.

Add to this checksums of a small percentage of file on each run (ala
RsyncCsumCacheVerifyProb) to verify nothing bad is happening, and you should be
quite secure.


> I have been offering those solutions short of a rewrite of the
> application.  Are you living with specific security requirements? Did
> you try setting rsync and the login shell?  What result?  Are you
> considering setup of VPN?

I've pointed out a bug in RsyncP.  Fixing it does not require a rewrite of any
applications.  Since nobody here has expressed any interest, it looks like I'll
end up doing it on my own.

I am not considering any more workarounds.  I can think of a few, but all are
invasive and complex.  I didn't try changing root's login shell to rsync,
because I know it won't work.  Ditto for the .hushlogin suggestion, but I did it
anyhow, because that was extremely quick to test.  Setting up rsyncd and a VPN
for numerous systems would be a huge waste of time, and sure to result in added
administration down the road.  Either I'll fix RsyncP myself, or because of this
and other limitations, (the most significant of which I have outlined) we might
opt to not roll-out BackupPC at all, and use either commercial options, or
in-house automation of rsync.

> If the only thing your willing to live with is a rewrite of the entire 
> system so that it behaves in a way you "believe" it can and should then 
> I for one am done.

I appreciate your attempts to help, and really don't mind them intermingled with
hostility and insults.  However, since I've sunk plenty of time into this list,
and not gotten the least bit of new information, I'll call this thread "done"
myself.  My time could have been, and now will be, much better spent.


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