[Box Backup] Problems with cygwin

[Per Thomsen]

On 11/29/04 2:33 AM, Ben Summers wrote:

>
> On 28 Nov 2004, at 23:40, Per Thomsen wrote:
>
>> On 11/27/04 9:10 AM, Ben Summers wrote:
>
>>
>>> If a directory is modified on the client, it will request a list of  
>>> that directory from the server until it has uploaded the files. 
>>> This  might mean it's requested once an hour with the default 
>>> settings, for  up to six hours. Might this be it?
>>>
>>> Or if the client is a fileserver, and one of it's clients has a 
>>> clock  which is wildly out of sync, it might be downloading the 
>>> directories  all the time. Check the client logs for warnings about 
>>> huge offsets,  but, say, a 12 hour offset won't provoke the warning 
>>> but continual  filesystem write activity by that fileserver client 
>>> will result in more  queries to the server.
>>>
>>> But as usual, a look at the logs will give more clarity over what's  
>>> happening.
>>
>>
>> I looked at the logs, and here's what I've found: The two wayward 
>> clients are connecting every 5 minutes and 10 seconds (+/- 3 
>> seconds), rather than every hour as their config files dictate.
>
>
> I can't think of any reason for that behaviour.
>
>>
>> Your explanation about the higher transmission rates makes sense, if 
>> the clients are constantly requesting the directory information from 
>> the server. The connection takes between 2 and 4 minutes, so there is 
>> always at least one client connected to the server. Hence the 
>> constant bandwidth drain.
>>
>> I won't have access to the client machines until tomorrow (they are 
>> at 2 different companies that won't be open until Monday), but I will 
>> look at the Windows event logs for them to see if I can glean any 
>> more information from them.
>>
>> My suspicion is that one of two things is happening:
>> 1. There is a bug in the 0.08 cygwin client, which causes this 
>> behavior. My bandwidth use changed after I installed the 0.08 cygwin 
>> client. I installed the 0.08h win32 client on a Windows machine here, 
>> and observed no problems like what I'm seeing with the cygwin client. 
>> The cygwin client on this machine had done the 'every-5-minute' thing 
>> before that as well.
>
>
> I have never run the cygwin client. I'm afraid I can't really help on 
> this. Looking at the logs may show something interesting, and perhaps 
> someone else who does run it can help?

I looked at the logs today, but because bbackupd is running as a Windows 
Service, reading the logs is decidedly difficult (Windows Gurus: is 
there a plain text file to read the 'Event Log'?), and I didn't see 
anything weird. I will start it as a regular process tomorrow, and see 
if I can get some more information from those logs.

Does anyone else run the cygwin 0.08 client? Are you seeing anything 
similar?

>
>
>>
>> 2. The new versions of the client somehow has permission problems 
>> with the /var/bbackupd directory. I will be checking into that 
>> tomorrow. If bbackupd is unable to touch the 'last_sync_start' file, 
>> I can see how this can happen. last_sync_start never gets a more 
>> recent timestamp, and bbackupd will continually try to touch the 
>> file, and re-connect.
>
>
> These timestamps are for information only. The client does not use 
> them for timing information. This won't be the problem.

OK. That didn't seem to be the problem anyway. The files were properly 
updated.

>
>>
>> I'm going to be switching to the Win32 clients anyway, so this may be 
>> a moot point for me (if it is cygwin-related), but I wanted to make 
>> sure that something wasn't being missed.
>
>
> I would like to know why it's doing this, in case it's a problem with 
> some of the non-cygwin code.

OK. I'll see what I find tomorrow.

Thanks,
Per

-- 
Per Reedtz Thomsen | Reedtz Consulting, LLC | F: 209 883 4119
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