rsync and missing files?

[John Madden]

>> send_files failed to open //home/user/Maildir/new/_dwG.NeZv8.blah: No
>> such file or directory
>> rsync error: partial transfer (code 23) at main.c(578)
>
> This looks slightly problematic. While Maildir delivery guarantees that
> files in new/ will always be complete/present, no such guarantee exists
> for retrieval/access. There is a race between stat'ing the source files
> and sending file data in the sender and any external process (a program
> such as qmail-pop3d in this case) which removes the source files. One
> way around this would be to use a lock file to coordinate access to the
> Maildir between the backup process and the POP daemon. This isn't too
> intrusive; while the lock is present, mail delivery can still take
> place.

Well, since this was the only response, are we looking at the possibility of
this being the default behavior?

I'd be quite happy with rsync just throwing a warning and going to the next
file, or at least there being an option to turn on such behavior.  We're
looking at deploying rsync as our global backup method, but not being able
to backup constantly-changing directories will force us to resort to using
NFS or something equally nasty.

Thanks,
  John




-- 
John Madden
UNIX Systems Engineer
Ivy Tech State College
jmadden at ivy.tec.in.us