rsync - Jan 2009 - DO NOT REPLY [Bug 6025] New: 0 files to consider should not return code 23

https://bugzilla.samba.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6025

           Summary: 0 files to consider should not return code 23
           Product: rsync
           Version: 2.6.9
          Platform: x86
               URL: http://www.paguito.com
        OS/Version: Linux
            Status: NEW
          Severity: major
          Priority: P3
         Component: core
        AssignedTo: wayned@samba.org
        ReportedBy: pabangel@yahoo.com
         QAContact: rsync-qa@samba.org


When rsync is asked to download files and the result is CORRECTLY "0 files
to
consider", either because the directory just happens to be empty at the
moment
or the files matching the pattern are CORRECTLY not present in the directory,
it returns a CODE 23. This is wrong.

This behavior is incorrect, CODE 23 means "Partial transfer due to
error". In
such a case there was CORRECTLY nothing to transfer, therefore, the program
should exit gracefully with a CODE 0 "Success". Since it has nothing
to do and
therefore it did nothing. 

Returning CODE 23 is missleading for other programmers using rsync inside a
shell script as is leads them to believe that there were some actual files to
download but for some reason rsync was unable to download them.

In my case, as an example i am downloadig Apache log files from a test server
this files are sometimes rotated automatically by cron or sometimes manually
deleted.

When I have rsync download all the log files in the usual Apache log directory 
/var/log/httpd , and the directory just happens to be empty:

rsync -qPt -e ssh root2@mysite.com:/var/log/httpd/access_log.* /root/myoldLogs/

I get:

rsync: link_stat "/var/log/httpd/access_log.*" failed: No such file or
directory (2)

rsync error: some files could not be transferred (code 23) at main.c(1385) 



IMO: "some files could not be transferred"  is incorrect as there were
no files
no transfer.

Note that removing the --verbose option or adding the --quiet option did not
solve the problem.

I have seen some people using a workaround by adding a single file using the
"touch" command to create a single empty file that would match the
pattern on
the rsync command, so that "0 files to consider" would be "1
files to consider"
and rsync returns CODE 0 "Success".

Thank you.

Pablo Angel Rendon


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https://bugzilla.samba.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6025


matt@mattmccutchen.net changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Status|NEW                         |RESOLVED
         Resolution|                            |WONTFIX




------- Comment #1 from matt@mattmccutchen.net  2009-01-12 18:49 CST -------
Rsync is following traditional shell behavior, under which a wildcard pattern
that matches nothing is left unexpanded.  (Actually, in your case, rsync relies
on the remote shell to handle the wildcard, but rsync emulates the same
behavior when --protect-args is on.)  Thus, rsync tries to copy the file
"/var/log/httpd/access_log.*" with an asterisk in the name, which does
not
exist, hence the code 23.  You'll get the same result with cp.  This is
reasonable because an unmatched pattern is often a mistake rather than a
genuine attempt to match zero files.

I suggest that you specify the containing directory as the source and use
filters to exclude all the files except the ones you want:

rsync -qPtdO -e ssh --include='access_log.*' --exclude='*'
root2@mysite.com:/var/log/httpd/ /root/myoldLogs/

This will successfully do nothing if there are no matching files.

If you don't like including the containing directory in the file list, you
could do this instead:

rsync -qPt -e ssh --rsync-path='rsync --files-from=<(find /var/log/httpd/
-maxdepth 1 -name "access_log.*" -printf "%P\n")'
root2@mysite.com:/var/log/httpd/ /root/myoldLogs/


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