Rsync synchronization problem

[Cristian KLEIN]

Oliver Fromme wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> This is probably not related to the problems described in
> this thread, but I'd like to give a generic warning about
> the use of rsync.
> 
> As long as things are fine, rsync runs very well.  But as
> soon as there's some error situation, it might start
> running havoc.  For example, I had situations where the
> destination file system was full (or out of inodes), and
> rsync started to mirror files at completely different
> positions, filling a shared bin directory with random
> files from users' homes and even device nodes.  In another
> case there was a permission problem on one directory, which
> caused rsync to ignore random files (but not all of them)
> in a completely different directory (which did have the
> correct permissions).
> 
> It seems that rsync's error handling is very bad, and if
> an error occurs, serious bugs start to appear.
> 
> I wouldn't go as far as saying "rsync considered harmful",
> but when you use rsync, make sure that you always have
> sufficient space on the target file file system, and that
> no other errors occur.  Always check for errors.  If
> something goes wrong, make sure that all files are still
> where they belong (or delete everything and start from
> scratch).
> 
> Personally I try to avoid rsync when possible.  The FreeBSD
> FTP tree consists mostly of compressed binary files that
> don't benefit from the rsync algorithm anyway.
> 
> Just my 2 cents.  YMMV, of course.

For the record, I switched over to cvsup and I have no more timeouts.
For those who might attempt to go from rsync to cvsup, be advised that
cvsup seems to redownload (mostly using rsync protocol) all files.