parallel-rsync crashes every time due to parsing a list as a string

[James Holdsworth]

Example command:

parallel-rsync -z -r -O 'IdentityFile=/home/james/Projects/ssh/control.pem' -l control -H ec2-46-51-187-11.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com -H ec2-176-34-215-214.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com '/home/james/test.txt' '/tmp/'
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/parallel-rsync", line 125, in <module>
    do_prsync(hosts, local, remote, opts)
  File "/usr/bin/parallel-rsync", line 78, in do_prsync
    cmd = ['rsync', '-e', ' '.join(ssh)]
TypeError: sequence item 2: expected string, list found

1) This is a bug in the parallel-rsync command at /usr/bin, in the pssh package (apt-cache policy pssh):
pssh:
  Installed: 2.2.2-1
  Candidate: 2.2.2-1
  Version table:
 *** 2.2.2-1 0
        500 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/universe i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

2) On Ubuntu 12.04 (lsb_release -rd):
Description: Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS
Release: 12.04

3) I expect a return value of 0, and for the file to have been uploaded to all the remote servers by rsync

4) I got the error shown above.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: pssh 2.2.2-1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-29.46-generic-pae 3.2.24
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-29-generic-pae i686
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu12
Architecture: i386
Date: Wed Oct 31 22:15:29 2012
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Release i386 (20120817.3)
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_GB:en
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: pssh
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[James Holdsworth (jwholdsworth)]

This isn't just in 12.04 and it's not just on i386. Myself and my colleagues have had the same problem in Ubuntu 11.10 x64 and 12.04 LTS x64

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

The attachment "sudo patch /usr/bin/parallel-rsync prsync.patch" of this bug report has been identified as being a patch. The ubuntu-reviewers team has been subscribed to the bug report so that they can review the patch. In the event that this is in fact not a patch you can resolve this situation by removing the tag 'patch' from the bug report and editing the attachment so that it is not flagged as a patch. Additionally, if you are member of the ubuntu-reviewers team please also unsubscribe the team from this bug report.

[This is an automated message performed by a Launchpad user owned by Brian Murray. Please contact him regarding any issues with the action taken in this bug report.]

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.