[U] RE: RE: RE: Rsync Errors

[Matt McCutchen]

On 9/5/07, Peter, Theresa M Ms CONT USAAC <THERESA.PETER at usaac.army.mil> wrote:
> We were using compression on the network; through using a WAS device. We
> have turned that off and we are no longer seeing the problem.  Why would
> compression cause these issues?

Probably there is a bug in the WAS's compression algorithm that is
corrupting the data sent over the rsync connection.

> If we turn the WAS (network compression)
> back on is this going to cause more issues.

Yes.

> What do you mean by "the binary
> data protocol is no longer in sync"?

Rsync sends a continuous stream of bytes over the connection, and each
group of bytes has a specific meaning according to the rsync protocol.
 Rsync depends delicately on the entire stream of bytes arriving
intact on the other side so that the receiver interprets each group of
bytes in the way the sender intended.  In many cases, loss or
corruption of a single byte of the stream causes the receiver to
misinterpret all the data it receives from that point on, resulting in
the errors you saw.  This is analogous to a frameshift or nonsense
mutation in DNA if you happen to be familiar with those concepts.

Matt