rsync aka troubleshooting a system that blatantly lies!

Grrrr... I am seriously pulling my hair out here.

I'm trying to set up rsync (first time I have used it) through ssh between two identical linux webservers.

Once the daemon is started on the backup server I can run (sensitive data blanked out):

rsync --verbose --progress --stats --rsync-path=/usr/local/bin/rsync --compress --rsh="ssh" --recursive --times /rsynctrans/* user@xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:wwopbetasite

on the master webserver, I get asked for the password for the user, then I get:

building file list ...
1 file to consider
test.txt
6 100% 0.00kB/s 0:00:00
rsync[3517] (sender) heap statistics:
arena: 328024 (bytes from sbrk)
ordblks: 2 (chunks not in use)
smblks: 5
hblks: 1 (chunks from mmap)
hblkhd: 266240 (bytes from mmap)
usmblks: 0
fsmblks: 152
uordblks: 322304 (bytes used)
fordblks: 5720 (bytes free)
keepcost: 1608 (bytes in releasable chunk)

Number of files: 1
Number of files transferred: 1
Total file size: 6 bytes
Total transferred file size: 6 bytes
Literal data: 6 bytes
Matched data: 0 bytes
File list size: 27
Total bytes written: 82
Total bytes read: 42

wrote 82 bytes read 42 bytes 49.60 bytes/sec
total size is 6 speedup is 0.05

which looks fine, except that the test.txt doesn't appear on the other server and nothing appears in the log!

But if I run:

rsync --verbose --progress --stats --rsync-path=/usr/local/bin/rsync --compress --recursive --times /rsynctrans/* user@xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx::wwopbetasite

(i.e. through rsh), the file appears and there is a log entry! The following dump is displayed when running as rsh:

building file list ...
1 file to consider
test.txt
6 100% 0.00kB/s 0:00:00
rsync[3521] (sender) heap statistics:
arena: 328024 (bytes from sbrk)
ordblks: 3 (chunks not in use)
smblks: 3
hblks: 0 (chunks from mmap)
hblkhd: 0 (bytes from mmap)
usmblks: 0
fsmblks: 96
uordblks: 322240 (bytes used)
fordblks: 5784 (bytes free)
keepcost: 1648 (bytes in releasable chunk)

Number of files: 1
Number of files transferred: 1
Total file size: 6 bytes
Total transferred file size: 6 bytes
Literal data: 6 bytes
Matched data: 0 bytes
File list size: 27
Total bytes written: 134
Total bytes read: 56

wrote 134 bytes read 56 bytes 380.00 bytes/sec
total size is 6 speedup is 0.03



I have stripped my rsync conf right down to the bear bones of a working file (sensitive data blocked out):

log file = /var/log/rsync.log
pid file = /var/log/rsync.pid
lock file = /var/run/rsync.lock

[wwopbetasite]
path = /rsynctrans
uid = [user]
gid = users
read only = no

and the ssh log does show that the user and password is let in when I run the sync under ssh...

How can I troubleshoot a system that insists on telling me it's working!!! :laugh:

Someone please help!

The plot thickens...

If I use:

rsync --verbose --progress --stats --rsync-path=/usr/local/bin/rsync --compress --rsh=/usr/bin/ssh --recursive --times /rsynctrans/* user@xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:/rsynctrans

and explicitly specify the destination rather than:

rsync --verbose --progress --stats --rsync-path=/usr/local/bin/rsync --compress --rsh=/usr/bin/ssh --recursive --times /rsynctrans/* user@xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:wwopbetasite

which references the daemon configuration file block in rsync.conf on the backup server, then it works. But I can use the wwopbetasite block under rsh (see previous post) - does anyone understand why, and what I'm doing wrong?