rsync 2.6.6 : Possible comms failure during delete backup of large filesystem

[Wayne Davison]

On Thu, Sep 08, 2005 at 01:39:39PM +1000, Mark Inkley wrote:
> You will note, that I am using 2.6.6, previously I used 2.6.2 which
> had the same issues.

Is the version on each machine 2.6.6?  If the remote version is older
than 2.6.4 then rsync cannot use its keep-alive protocol to try to keep
the connection from timing out during lulls in the sending of data (such
as when one side is busy deleting files).  (Also, 2.6.4 only has partial
keep-alive support.)

If both machines are running 2.6.6, it is still possible for the session
to timeout if the keep-alive logic doesn't get called often enough for
the speed of your system and the largeness of the files involved (e.g. a
local copy of a large file that can occur when backing up deleted files
can slow down the checking).  In such situations, a workaround is to
slightly increase the timeout value to avoid the accidental triggering.

Yes, the keep-alive logic in rsync could be improved to help it avoid
such extended lull sections, so if someone wants to look into this,
feel free.

..wayne..