NON-empty module, - but always 'received 0 names', 'recv_file_list_done', but always get 'total size is 0'?

[Jeffrey Lim]

hi, guys, as per subject. I've been working hard (searching hard,
trying hard, googling hard) at trying to find a solution to the
abovementioned problem, but nothing.

I have several non-empty modules, all of which have files inside -
NON-empty modules - but i have always failed to be able to rsync. Why?

This is the behaviour:
-----------
# rsync -vvv localhost::a .
opening tcp connection to localhost port 873
opening connection using --server --sender -vvv . a
received 0 names
recv_file_list done

sent 4 bytes  received 9 bytes  26.00 bytes/sec
total size is 0  speedup is 0.00
_exit_cleanup(code=0, file=main.c, line=1298): about to call exit(0)
-----------------

Troubleshooting steps taken/Diagnostic checklist items done:
- i am root, and root has access to the module
- doing 'rsync localhost::' verifies that the module name is valid.
- tried doing rsync from another host with a different version of
rsync. No luck, same problem.
- doing 'rsync localhost::a' gives a list of the files in the module
# rsync localhost::a
drwxr-xr-x         512 2006/06/03 07:51:24 .
-rw-r--r--           8 2006/06/03 07:51:29 file1
-rw-r--r--          10 2006/06/03 07:51:35 file2
-rw-r--r--         127 2006/06/03 07:52:07 file3
- doing 'rsync -vvv localhost::a .' however copies nothing! Instead,
it reports that '
received 0 names
recv_file_list done
' (see above behaviour report as well)
- just for luck, tried 'rsync -vvv localhost::a ./', 'rsync -vvv
localhost::a/ ./' (and other permutations) as well. Nothing.
- searching on google produced nothing useful.
- took a look at rsyncd's log file. Nothing useful:
2006/06/03 07:58:06 [1401] rsync on a from localhost (127.0.0.1)
2006/06/03 07:58:06 [1401] sent 107 bytes  received 65 bytes  total
size 145 =>*note - i still see nothing! and i get get a larger count
of bytes than this
2006/06/03 07:58:41 [1420] connect from localhost (127.0.0.1)
2006/06/03 07:58:41 [1420] rsync on a from localhost (127.0.0.1)
2006/06/03 07:58:44 [1423] connect from localhost (127.0.0.1)
2006/06/03 07:58:44 [1423] rsync on a from localhost (127.0.0.1)
- finally, tried rsync over ssh - that works, but i really would like
to be able to use module names

Here's my rsyncd.conf -
---------------
# rsyncd.conf - Example file, see rsyncd.conf(5)
#

pid file = /var/run/rsyncd.pid

uid = nobody
gid = nobody
#use chroot = yes
#max connections = 4
#syslog facility = local5
#refuse options = delete
log file = /var/log/rsyncd.log

[etc]
        path = /etc/

[a]
        path = /tmp/a
-----------

Am i missing something here? Pls help.

thanks,
-jf