Please backport rdiff-backup for hardy

[kvdb]

rdiff-backup (1.1.15-1) has a serious bug that keeps me from reliable backups. Often, when a previous backup hasn't been finished (due to network failure), rdiff-backup will crash on subsequent backups.

It's a bug that according to the author, has been fixed in 1.1.16:
'Finally fix 'No such file or directory' bug when attempting to regress after
a failed backup. (Patch from Josh Nisly)'

Please backport that version or the fix to hardy.

[Daniel Moerner (dmoerner)]

rdiff-backup-1.2.0 is actually the newest version. I have followed https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PackagingGuide/Recipes/DebianWatch to rebuild the package for you. It currently gives the following Lintian warning:

W: rdiff-backup source: changelog-should-mention-nmu
W: rdiff-backup source: source-nmu-has-incorrect-version-number 1.2.0-1

Since this is the first package I have rebuilt, I don't know how to fix that. The package however works fine and should fix your problem. I have attached .dsc and .deb.

[Daniel Moerner (dmoerner)]

I apologize if this is the wrong way to respond to a bug like this but I figured it would be helpful and I didn't really know the correct procedure.

[Pär Lindfors (paran)]

I don't think this should qualify as a backport as the only reason is to fix a bug.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuBackports#How to request new packages

Also the bug is quite serious (failed backups could easily cause dataloss) so this should be a SRU. Have you looked at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates ?

[kvdb (kc0)]

Daniel, thank you for your time to create a new release. For these three reasons I haven't tried it yet.

1: I went on vacation.
2: The bug has gone away as a new month has started. Once every month, rdiff-backup no longer creates another incremental (that caused the problem) but starts with a new base. (full or differential, not sure).
3: I'm a bit scared to try that new 1.2.0 version as first user. I've experienced annoying bugs in rdiff-backup earlier on. I trust my current version to create a least monthly backups that are valid. I don't want to gamble any further ;-|

To Par: I've filed bug #256366 against rdiff-backup with a hardy tag. Hope that will do.