Rsync fails on local transfers

[Justin W]

Cameron Simpson wrote:
> On 17Jul2007 11:16, Justin W <jlist at jdjlab.com> wrote:
>   
>> Justin W wrote:
>>     
>>> I've got a script I wrote up which backs up my computer using rsync.  A
>>> short overview is that I created a file system image using dd,
>>>       
> Don't you create filesystems with mkfs/e2mkfs ?
> You need to use dd to make a file to _hold_ the filesystem, but that's
> just a chunk of data; it's not a filesystem until you use mkfs.
>   
Not if the file system already exists and you just make a bit-for-bit 
copy.  I achieved that with a command along the lines of `dd 
if=/dev/mapper/System-fc6 of=/mnt/external_hd/system_backup_file bs=4K`, 
which then copied my filesystem as it exactly was. Then that image can 
be mounted using a loop device (`mount -o loop 
/mnt/external_hd/system_backup_file /mnt/backup_mount_point`)

> Half of rsync is crashing; it forks. Run "strace -f", and then look at 
> the pid that _isn't_ the one printing the error message.
I eventually figured out that rsync has two parts to it (see BZ#248663), 
but this would have been nice to know about before that.  Thanks, and 
I'll remember that for later! Even knowing that there was a segfault 
would have helped: I spent hours trying to figure out if cron was 
killing what it might have thought to be a "dead" process. I was only 
lucky enough today to get a manual run of the script to fail on me.

Justin W