rsync logfile starts to include litteral date format in path

Question

I created a backup-shell that runs as a cron job. That's not new.... But in the command line I have the logfilename specified with a date format. All is ok, until it reaches the folder where the logfile resides. It creates a folder witha that name and it looks like rsync is copying everything in that folder, including the strange foldername, over and over again. I try to rsync to my synology where DSM 6.1 is installed. I shared a folder on the synology to /mnt/NAS2 on my server The script is

/root/backup/backup_daily.sh

it is set to run once a day. the command line in the script is basically:

rsync -avzr --stats --progress --log-file=$(date +'%Y%m%d') --exclude-from=$EXCLUDE / /mnt/NAS2/backup

(I use some vars for the options, but for clarity replaced by the strings. I have tried to do in the script as well, does not make any difference.) In the exclude file are some folders, including /root/backup/

Here is what happens, see after the file 'xx':

2017/04/03 20:51:09 [1669] >f+++++++++ lib/xtables/libxt_time.so

2017/04/03 20:51:09 [1669] >f+++++++++ lib/xtables/libxt_tos.so

2017/04/03 20:51:09 [1669] >f+++++++++ lib/xtables/libxt_u32.so

2017/04/03 20:51:09 [1669] >f+++++++++ lib/xtables/libxt_udp.so

2017/04/03 20:51:09 [1669] cd+++++++++ lib64/

2017/04/03 20:51:09 [1669] cL+++++++++ lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 -> /lib/x86_64 -linux-gnu/ld-2.23.so

2017/04/03 20:51:09 [1669] cd+++++++++ opt/

2017/04/03 20:51:09 [1669] cd+++++++++ root/

2017/04/03 20:51:09 [1669] >f+++++++++ root/.bash_history

2017/04/03 20:51:09 [1669] >f+++++++++ root/.bashrc

2017/04/03 20:51:09 [1669] >f+++++++++ root/.profile

2017/04/03 20:51:09 [1669] >f+++++++++ root/.selected_editor

2017/04/03 20:51:09 [1669] >f+++++++++ root/20170403

2017/04/03 20:51:09 [1669] >f+++++++++ root/xx

2017/04/03 20:51:09 [1669] cd+++++++++ root/+"%Y%m%d").log/

2017/04/03 20:51:09 [1669] cL+++++++++ root/+"%Y%m%d").log/initrd.img -> boot/in itrd.img-4.4.0-71-generic

2017/04/03 20:51:09 [1669] cL+++++++++ root/+"%Y%m%d").log/initrd.img.old -> boo t/initrd.img-4.4.0-70-generic

2017/04/03 20:51:09 [1669] cL+++++++++ root/+"%Y%m%d").log/vmlinuz -> boot/vmlin uz-4.4.0-71-generic

[This goes on and on.]

I must do something obviously thing wrong... Hope I supplied enough info and did use the correct rules/indents, as it is first post on this forum.

Answer 1

What if you run your command directly as you posted it here from the terminal?

Did you try, to set --log-file to a static value? Because for me it looks like at the root/+"%Y%m%d").log/vmlinuz part something went wrong. Do you have somewhere else in your script a definition of the date like "%Y%m%d"?

Answer 2

Thanks. If I start the script manually, same behavior. I expect that if I fix the logfilename, it will not happen. I do not use the date elsewhere, I only use it once in the script to set the variable. As I mentioned, for simplicity I put that part on the commandline. The script is very short. In this version I put the date on the commandline, but initially I used the CURDATE - no difference.

#!/bin/bash
#
# Backup (Incremental) of server
#
LOCALDIR=/
SERVERDIR=/mnt/NAS2/backup
EXCLUDE='/root/backup/exclude.lst'
CURDATE="$(date +'%Y%m%d')"
LOGFILE="/root/backup/$CURDATE.log"

rsync -avzr --stats  \
 --progress --log-file=$(date +'%Y%m%d') \
 --exclude-from=$EXCLUDE $LOCALDIR $SERVERDIR

It goes wrong exactly after backing up the file /root/xx, and that is exactly the point where the logfile is created. So I guess it goes wrong because it tries to backup the logfile that it is writing to. For that reason I tried to exclude the backup folder, but that seems to be ignored. I found some discussion about the exclude file, but maybe I misinterpred that, as it still tries to backup that folder.

Exclude.lst, just for reference:

lost+found
down
/tmp
.cache
.thumbnails
/dev
/media
/mnt
/proc
/sys
/root/backup/

Note: it is a test server, not on the net, just to test scripts before I use it on a live server:). BTW - using rsync with ssh to the synology seems a better option than backing up to a shared folder, but even after copying the key, using ssh-copy-id, the synology keeps asking for password, so that is another challange. Thanks again for your help.