@ERROR: auth failed on module -- PROBLEM SOLVED!

[Jonathan Johnson]

The man page for rsync(1) states:

	--password-file

		This option allows you to provide a password in a
		file for accessing a remote rsync server. Note that
		this option is only useful when accessing an rsync
		server using the built in trans- port, not when using a
		remote shell as the transport. The file must not be
		world readable. It should contain just the password as
		a single line.


I found that a newline is required after the line containing the
password, at least in rsync 2.6.2. Without the newline character, I
would see this error:

[root at sql mail]# rsync -av --password-file=/root/.rsync/secrets-proxy \
archivist at proxy::mailarchive/ /sql/archive/mail
@ERROR: auth failed on module mailarchive
rsync: connection unexpectedly closed (95 bytes read so far)
rsync error: error in rsync protocol data stream (code 12) at io.c(342)

Upon adding a newline, the problem went away.

Perhaps the documentation could be clarified: "...as a single line
followed by a newline." Or something to that effect.

What, you mean I'm not supposed to take it literally?  :-)

--Jon Johnson
Sutinen Consulting, Inc.
jon at sutinen.com