Package: rsync Version: 3.0.3-2 Severity: important I just used rsync -av to transfer some files to a vfat partition today, and I was surprised that the files failed to transfer. I do understand that I shouldn't really be using the -a option to transfer the files. On earlier kernels, this was never a problem, since I'd only get errors pertaining to permissions and ownership not being preserved, yet the files transferred just fine.
In order to see what happened, I used virtualbox to install the netinst iso for LennyBeta2. This iso ships with the 2.6.24 kernel. I upgraded to the 2.6.25 kernel, and tested rsync on both kernels. It seems that the mkstemp call isn't permitted on vfat filesystems on the 2.6.25 kernel. The files transferred without problems on the 2.6.24 kernel, yet on the 2.6.25 kernel, the only data on the vfat partition was empty directories and no files. I think that this unexpected behavior has the potential to cause data loss, if the person transferring the files isn't paying enough attention (by this I mean the person is used to seeing "Operation not permitted", and relates those errors to permission/ownership errors that they have been historically used to seeing) and erasing the files on the source side at the completion of the rsync run. I looked through the bug reports, but I couldn't find anything related to this particular problem. I did find this in the lkml: http://kerneltrap.org/mailarchive/linux-kernel/2008/5/30/1983814 I hesitate to make this bug report at a severity higher than important, since I'm not sure of it's impact on the debian users. I think that the potential for data loss is present, although I'm not qualified to evaluate that potential. I do feel that a debconf warning of high or critical during an upgrade (and maybe fresh install, too) would be appropriate. I think that it's quite possible that I've reported this bug in the wrong place, as it's a change in the kernel vfat module that actually causes the unexpected behavior. I tried browsing through the bug reports there, but even with filtering for 2.6.25 and vfat, it's been quite a chore. >From where I'm sitting, I can't even tell if 2.6.25 or 2.6.26 will be the version released with lenny. I chose to file the report here, since I noticed the problem with rsync, and rsync is a popular program. I'm sorry if that's not what I should be doing, but I don't really know what else to do. -- System Information: Debian Release: lenny/sid APT prefers testing APT policy: (500, 'testing') Architecture: i386 (i686) Kernel: Linux 2.6.25-2-686 (SMP w/1 CPU core) Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash Versions of packages rsync depends on: ii base-files 4.0.4 Debian base system miscellaneous f ii libacl1 2.2.47-2 Access control list shared library ii libc6 2.7-13 GNU C Library: Shared libraries ii libpopt0 1.14-4 lib for parsing cmdline parameters ii lsb-base 3.2-19 Linux Standard Base 3.2 init scrip rsync recommends no packages. Versions of packages rsync suggests: ii openssh-client 1:4.7p1-12 secure shell client, an rlogin/rsh ii openssh-server 1:4.7p1-12 secure shell server, an rshd repla -- no debconf information -- Thanks: Joseph Rawson
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