RERR_PARTIAL exit status

[Matt McCutchen]

On Thu, 2010-06-17 at 13:46 -0600, Keith Hellman wrote: 
> I recently changed my backup script to invoke with rsync w/ -v -v and store
> the output to (yet another) log file.  After a nightly backup I looked
> at the results, and:
>    
>   1. removed all the lines ending in ' is uptodoate$'
>   2. removed all the lines with a space (presumably a log message
> 	 causing RERR_PARTIAL would have a space in it)
>   3. removed all the lines w/ ' [-=]> '

#3 may be the problem.  Some RERR_PARTIAL error messages contain that
sequence, for example, 'rename foo -> "bar": Operation not permitted'. 

> I was hoping to weasel this log file down to that singlular file that is
> causing the RERR_PARTIAL exit code.  No dice.  All I saw were the
> 2 filenames I have with a space in them. :^(
> 
> So, my questions to the rsync community are:
> 
>   1. Am I correct in assuming that rsync *would* write something to
> 	 stdout or stderr when the RERR_PARTIAL condition is triggered?

Yes.  If rsync exits with RERR_PARTIAL without printing a specific
message about the problem to stderr, it's a bug.

I would suggest sending stdout and stderr to separate files, like this:

rsync ... >rsync.out 2>rsync.err

Then look at rsync.err.  It should have the relevant errors and nothing
else.  If it is empty, then something deeper is wrong and it may be
helpful to strace rsync.

-- 
Matt