Permission issue with rsyncd between Linux box and NAS

Question

I have set up a small 1TB NAS appliance, now running on OpenWRT, to back-up files from a small 500Gb drive inside my Devuan Linux box holding all my Timeshift and BackInTime snapshots.

The NAS's specs -800MHz APM82181/256MB RAM- require avoiding the use of ssh or wait ages for a job to complete at 7.50MiB/s max, in spite of both ends having GbE ports negotiating at 1000M.

Happens that ssh beats this hardware to death with an almost constant 100% CPU load, mostly due to encryption, so it is not an viable option.

All this is done within a local network with no access from the ouside and I am the only user, so the lack of encryption is not an issue.

With that in mind, I had no choice but to use rsync as a daemon at the NAS end which would get me at least 3.5/4.0 times the throughput I can get with ssh.

The problem is that I am getting an error I cannot find a solution to.

:~$ rsync -av --progress /media/stuff/firefox.oldfile  rsync://groucho@192.168.1.3:/stuff
sending incremental file list
firefox.oldfile
     85,812,416 100%   28.23MB/s    0:00:02 (xfr#1, to-chk=0/1)
rsync: [receiver] mkstemp "/.firefox.oldfile.hiOlHH" (in stuff) failed: Permission denied (13)

sent 85,833,480 bytes  received 142 bytes  24,523,892.00 bytes/sec
total size is 85,812,416  speedup is 1.00
rsync error: some files/attrs were not transferred (see previous errors) (code 23) at main.c(1207) [sender=3.1.3]
:~$ 

The good news is that 28.23MB/s is (apparently) obtainable. =^)

I have read that this is a permission issue originating in rsync not being able to write the temporary file /.firefox.oldfile.dMAADG to the destination folder /mnt/sda3/stuff.

The log file adds nothing to the terminal printout:

root@OpenWrt:~# cat /var/log/rsyncd.log
[2726] connect from UNDETERMINED (192.168.1.2)
[2726] rsync allowed access on module stuff from UNDETERMINED (192.168.1.2)
[2726] rsync to stuff/ from UNDETERMINED (192.168.1.2)
[2726] receiving file list
[2726] rsync: [receiver] mkstemp "/.firefox.oldfile.dMAADG" (in stuff) failed: Permission denied (13)
root@OpenWrt:~#

I think my rsyncd.conf file is correct:

:/etc$ cat /etc/rsyncd.conf
# /etc/rsyncd.conf
# minimal configuration for rsync daemon
# -----------------------
# begin global parameters 

uid = %RSYNC_USER_NAME%
gid = *
use chroot = true
max connections = 1
pid file = /var/run/rsyncd.pid
log file = /var/log/rsyncd.log
read only = false
reverse lookup = no
exclude = lost+found
timeout = 180

hosts allow = 192.168.1.2  # use after everything is working properly
# port =                   # set other than default 873
# socket options =
# ignore nonreadable = 
# dont compress   = *.gz *.tgz *.zip *.z *.Z *.rpm *.deb *.bz2 

# end global parameters 
# ---------------------------
# begin module parameters

# shared folder for testing
[testdir]
path = /mnt/sda3
read only = false
# comment =

# shared folder for stuff
[stuff]
path = /mnt/sda3
read only = false
# comment =

# shared folder for bkups
[bkups]
path = /mnt/sda3
read only = false
# comment =

The ownership of the destination directories is correct as far as I can make out:

:~$ ls -l /mnt/sda3
drwxrwxrwx    4 groucho  groucho       4096 Apr 25 19:03 bkups
drwxrwxrwx    2 groucho  groucho       4096 Apr 29 18:47 stuff
drwxrwxrwx    2 groucho  groucho       4096 Apr 28 17:53 testdir
:~$ ls -l /mnt

I've been at this for a couple of days now, to no avail.

I'd appreciate it if someone could shed some light on this for me.

Thanks in advance,

G.

Answer 1

Your paths are missing the lowest level. For example:

[stuff]
path = /mnt/sda3
read only = false

This defines a share called stuff with a root of /mnt/sda3. I would imagine that /mnt/sda3 itself is not writable by your rsyncd user, and based on the directory listing you've give us I would say this isn't what you're intending.

Instead, you should actually specify the complete path.

[stuff]
    path = /mnt/sda3/stuff
    read only = false
    fake user = yes

I have included the fake user setting here, so that user, group, and permissions details can be captured even through the rsyncd daemon user (probably) isn't root.

I usually have these options, many of which can go in the global section:

[stuff]
    comment = Backup space for stuff
    path = /mnt/sda3/stuff
    hosts allow = ...
    auth users = *
    secrets file = /etc/rsyncd.secrets

    use chroot = yes
    read only = no
    list = yes
    strict modes = yes
    ignore errors = no
    ignore nonreadable = no
    fake super = yes
    transfer logging = no
    timeout = 600
    refuse options = delete
    dont compress = *.gz *.tgz *.zip *.z *.rpm *.deb *.iso *.bz2 *.tbz *.vib *.vbk