[12.04] Error using rsync to backup...

[sudodus]

Try with superuser privileges (put sudo in front of the command line)

[sudodus]

check the permissions of those files

ls -la /home/minion/.pulse-cookie /home/minion/.xsession-errors

Edit: I can read my corresponding files.

[Dennis N]

What's wrong?

Why not just exclude those two problem files?

add

--exclude=.pulse-cookie --exclude=.xsession-errors

to your rsync options.

[bc.haynes]

@ Dennis N - That readout was truncated. There are a LOT of .hidden files and folders.

@ sudodus - Permissions on those files are -rw------.

[Dennis N]

@ Dennis N - That readout was truncated. There are a LOT of .hidden files and folders.

@ sudodus - Permissions on those files are -rw------.

Well, on my computer many hidden files in the home folder have the same permissions. And I am the owner of all of them. I made a little test, and rsync transfered files with 600 permissions (rw for owner only = rw------) without complaining. Are you the owner of those files? If so, I don't understand the problem.

On my home backup, I have an exclude on ALL hidden files and folders, since as you say there are quite a few, and some can be large. I manually backup the ones I think are useful, like .bash_aliases and ~/.fonts for example. I am not interested in backing up .xsession-errors or ~/.pulse.

To exclude all hidden files (and folders) I use --exclude=.*

[sudodus]

Well, on my computer many hidden files in the home folder have the same permissions. And I am the owner of all of them. I made a little test, and rsync transfered files with 600 permissions (rw for owner only = rw------) without complaining. Are you the owner of those files? If so, I don't understand the problem.
...

+1

Are you the owner of those files, or do they belong to another user (other than the user running the backup)?

[bc.haynes]

This is a single user computer. I am the only user on it.

[bc.haynes]

@ Dennis N I tried :

rsync -rtui /home/ /media/backup exclude=.*

and I got into an endless loop....had to ^C.
This is the last part of the loop:

>f+++++++++ ben/exclude=.*/ben/exclude=.*/ben/exclude=.*/ben/exclude=.*/ben/exclude=.*/ben/exclude=.*/ben/exclude=.*/ben/.mozilla/firefox/g4hy8dln.default/times.json
>f+++++++++ ben/exclude=.*/ben/exclude=.*/ben/exclude=.*/ben/exclude=.*/ben/exclude=.*/ben/exclude=.*/ben/exclude=.*/ben/.mozilla/firefox/g4hy8dln.default/urlclassifierkey3.txt
>f+++++++++ ben/exclude=.*/ben/exclude=.*/ben/exclude=.*/ben/exclude=.*/ben/exclude=.*/ben/exclude=.*/ben/exclude=.*/ben/.mozilla/firefox/g4hy8dln.default/webappsstore.sqlite
^C^C^Crsync error: received SIGINT, SIGTERM, or SIGHUP (code 20) at rsync.c(549) [sender=3.0.9]
rsync: writefd_unbuffered failed to write 97 bytes to socket [generator]: Broken pipe (32)

What happened?

[Dennis N]

I checked and the pendrives are formatted ext4. I used two pendrives.

One last thought:

After formatting them ext4 (with gparted I presume?) these pendrives would be owned by root. Did you also change owner and group of the filesystem to your username? Otherwise, you cannot save anything to these drives, nor could rsync when run in your username.

New flash drive after the filesystem is formatted ext4 with gparted:

dmn@Zotac:/media/dmn$ ls -l
total 20
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Feb  8 09:13 9a537b36-f577-4617-9366-a652c87f0454

At this point, you are an 'other' and have r-x permissions. No write permission. You can't save any files on them.

[Dennis N]

@ Dennis N I tried :
Code:

rsync -rtui /home/ /media/backup exclude=.*

The --exclude=.* (not exclude=.*) must be on the source side, and you don't want /home/ as the source - you need /home/yourusername/

rsync -rtui --exclude=.* /home/yourusername/ /media/backup/