BackupPC hangs and crashes, and fixes for them.

Hi there,

Over on Github I've just released version 3.1.3.2 of rsync-bpc and
version 0.63rc3 of BackupPC-XS.

https://github.com/backuppc/rsync-bpc/releases
https://github.com/backuppc/backuppc-xs/releases

The reason for these releases is that last June a BackupPC user:

1. managed to crash three of his BackupPC servers;
2. because he's not a 'C' programmer, asked "AI" to tell him why; and
3. posted the results to Github rsync-bpc issue #50:

https://github.com/backuppc/rsync-bpc/issues/50

Unluckily I didn't spot that for over a month because of some stupid
Github setting (which I think I have now fixed) but as soon as I did
spot it I rolled up my sleeves and fixed the issues.  In brief, they
were failures to test for errors during file handling operations.

Even though I don't think that there's very much risk that the crashes
could be exploited, they are crashes so they do need to be fixed soon.

The code has been running here for a couple of days, but I wouldn't go
so far as to call that "tested" so YMMV.  Please let me know if there
are any problems.

If you're running older versions of rsync-bpc or BackupPC-XS and don't
feel inclined to do major upgrades I can probably provide patches if
you pipe up on the list - those I posted on issue #50 might even work
well enough to get you going although there'd probably be failed hunks
that are easily fixed.  For the avoidance of doubt, the patches needed
are for the following files:

bpc_fileZIO.c
bpc_poolWrite.c

in both BackupPC-XS and rsync-bpc.  In rsync-bpc the files are in the
subdirectory 'backuppc/'.  The file bpc_fileZIO.c is identical in both
packages so there is only one patch file, but the file bpc_poolWrite.c
is different so there are two.

FWIW I was astonished by the AI's assessment of the code.  No idea of
the particular AI variety but to a C coder of 50+ years it's stunning.
In addition to pinpointing the problems with laser-like focus, it even
suggested improvements for efficiency's sake which I implemented too.

Call me a convert.  I just hope I didn't make any silly mistakes. [*]

[*] Unfortunately I did make at least one, but that's now fixed.

-- 

73,
Ged.


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