v2.5.6 on AIX and large files

[Robert Cross]

Abstract: Looking for technical assistance with rsync version 2.5.6
protocol 26 on AIX.

Trying to use rsync (version 2.5.6) to sync two AIX-based systems the other
day, and a couple of the filesystems (7 out of 18 in total) gave the
following error message:

      rsync: writefd_unbuffered failed to write 32768 bytes: phase
"unknown": Broken pipe
      rsync error: error in rsync protocol data stream (code 12) at
io.c(515)

Typical command used was:
      rsync --archive --whole-file --one-file-system /sapdb/SP1/data6
sap06:/sapdb/SP2 2>> $logfile
and the network interface being used was Gigabit Ethernet, the disk in both
cases being hosted on an SAN system. So there's plenty of disk and LAN
capacity.

I've Googled for this problem, and the only references I can find for it,
seem to imply either LAN/IP-stack problems or problems with the source
data. I've got a problem believing either of these since:
a. I managed to send the failing file systems quite successfully using
standard "rcp" (remote copy) command. In fact rcp was twice as fast as
rsync (23MB/s+ v's 10-11MB/s) which I'm worried about.
b. No other problems noted with intersystem comms or these filesystems.
c. Other file systems which worked fine with rsync contained more data -
and were therefore larger - than some of the failing ones, so it's not a
file system size issue.

At the time I tried playing with some of the rsync parameters, dropping
--whole-file and adding --partial, with no success. Oh, and I'm not using
an rsync server/daemon nor ssh.

I've now done some more digging and all the filesystems that failed to sync
contain one or more files that are larger than 2GB in size. So it looks to
me like the latest version, on AIX at least, isn't large file
enabled/aware.

If anyone's got any flashes of inspiration on either the large file
"problem", or the lack of performance, I'd be really
interested/grateful....

Regards

Bob Cross.




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