Ok, so I tried with -v -v and -v -v -v, but this does not give more clue, only much more useless log data. I still have the problem that with: rsync -v -auxHS --delete --force / /backup/ I get the following log: building file list ... done deleting var/cache/man/cat1/gcc.1.gz deleting var/cache/man/cat1/gawk.1.gz deleting var/account/pacct-20010930.gz deleting tmp/bounce/b1.mail deleting tmp/.#l.html deleting tmp/#l.html# dev/ etc/ etc/cups/certs/ etc/cups/certs/0 etc/ntp.drift [...] var/spool/postfix/incoming/F/1/ var/spool/postfix/incoming/F/2/ var/spool/postfix/incoming/F/3/ var/spool/postfix/maildrop/ var/tmp/ and then nothing more happens, it's blocked there. ps shows that the three rsync processes are syspended waiting on do_sel (do_select). A dead-lock I would say. [root@thalassa root]# ps axflww | egrep rsync\|RSS\|backup F UID PID PPID PRI NI VSZ RSS WCHAN STAT TTY TIME COMMAND 000 0 19243 22982 9 0 2448 136 wait4 S pts/2 0:00 \_ /bin/bash /local/sbin/do-backup 004 0 19458 19243 9 0 65504 1152 do_sel S pts/2 0:37 | \_ rsync -v -auxHS --delete --force / /backup/ 006 0 19459 19458 9 0 172744 72228 do_sel S pts/2 1:34 | \_ rsync -v -auxHS --delete --force / /backup/ 006 0 19550 19459 9 0 172744 43360 do_sel S pts/2 0:02 | \_ rsync -v -auxHS --delete --force / /backup/ 000 0 19262 22982 9 0 1496 104 nanosl S pts/2 0:00 \_ tail -f /tmp/backup-19243.log 000 0 19779 22982 13 0 1568 536 pipe_w S pts/2 0:00 \_ egrep rsync|RSS|backup If I kill the grandchild and the child, I get this additionnal log: usr/lib/locale/kw_GB/LC_NAME => usr/lib/locale/kl_GL/LC_NAME usr/lib/locale/nl_BE/LC_NAME => usr/lib/locale/kw_GB/LC_NAME usr/lib/locale/nl_NL/LC_NAME => usr/lib/locale/nl_BE/LC_NAME usr/lib/locale/nn_NO/LC_NAME => usr/lib/locale/nl_NL/LC_NAME usr/lib/locale/no_NO/LC_NAME => usr/lib/locale/nn_NO/LC_NAME [...] usr/lib/locale/en_DK/LC_CTYPE => usr/lib/locale/en_CA/LC_CTYPE usr/lib/locale/en_GB/LC_CTYPE => usr/lib/locale/en_DK/LC_CTYPE usr/lib/locale/en_HK/LC_CTYPE => usr/lib/locale/en_GB/LC_CTYPE usr/lib/locale/en_IE/LC_CTYPE => usr/lib/locale/en_HK/LC_CTYPE unexpected EOF in read_timeout Note the filesystems / and /backup: Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/hda2 reiserfs 12G 11G 787M 94% / /dev/sda2 reiserfs 12G 11G 815M 94% /backup -- __Pascal_Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The name is Baud,...... James Baud.