Backup issues

[nmeyers at javalinux.net]

On Mon, Nov 10, 2003 at 09:37:00AM -0500, Jerry Feldman wrote:
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> I back up my wife's Windows system every night using rsync over SMBFS. 
> Lately, I am getting messages such as:
> readlink WINDOWS/FONTS/TT0084M_.TTF: Too many open files in system

That's almost certainly coming from the Linux side.

> This has only started to occur. I am using rsync version 2.5.6 with
> protocol version 26. I am using samba 2.2.7a-72 and a 2.4.20 kernel. 

I'd guess Samba isn't closing files quickly enough after you touch
them - no idea why.

Rsync is a great backup solution, but I think a move to a different
protocol would be a help. You could run an rsync server on the Linux box
and use the native rsync protocol, or tunnel rsync through rsh or ssh -
either one would take Samba out of the loop. Here's how it might look
in ssh (assuming something like a cygwin bash shell):

  RSYNC_RSH=ssh rsync [...all your usual options...] /windoz/wifecdrive wifeuserid at mylinuxhost:/path/to/backup/directory

You can set up cert-based ssh authentication for that account that'll
let this work without having to type a password, if that's desirable.

Nathan

> I'm not sure at this point if the open files limit is the Linux limit of
> 1024 or a limit on the Windows system or SMBFS. 
> 
> My thoughts are at this point is some issue with rsync either
> paralleling itself or not closing files after copy in some
> circumstances. 
> 
> My option on the command are:
> rsync -auv --exclude-from=exclude_file --delete-excluded
> /windoz/wifecdrive /backup/wifecdrive
> 
> I have a lot of excluded files (such as cache, temp, Windows swap). 
> 
> BTW: The reason I use rsync is that a tar file would be huge. I ran into
> that where it got so large that stat failed, and I had difficulty
> deleting it. Also, a large tar file would be difficult to restore a
> single file. 
> 
> 
> - -- 
> Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org>
> Boston Linux and Unix user group
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