Rsync keeps asking for password even though a secrets file is configured, what could be the reason?

Question

I've configured rsync on one of my servers, the configuration looks like that:

[root@pnmpg4 ~]# cat /etc/rsyncd.conf 
 max connections = 2
  log file = /var/log/rsync.log
  timeout = 300

[hadoop_out]
    comment =  hadoop_out
    path = /mass1/mt_data/hadoop_out 
    read only = no
    list = yes 
    uid = 502
    gid = 502
    auth users = syncuser
    secrets file = /etc/rsyncd.secrets
    hosts allow = X.X.X.X

xinetd manages the rsync daemon:

[root@pnmpg4 ~]# cat /etc/xinetd.d/rsync 
# default: off
# description: The rsync server is a good addition to an ftp server, as it \
#   allows crc checksumming etc.
service rsync
{
    disable = no
    socket_type     = stream
    wait            = no
    user            = root
    server          = /usr/bin/rsync
    server_args     = --daemon
    log_on_failure  += USERID
}

The secrets file includes only one line:

user:password

rsync secrets file permissions is like so:

[root@pnmpg4 ~]# ls -ld /etc/rsyncd.secrets 
-rw------- 1 root root 18 2015-01-22 01:07 /etc/rsyncd.secrets

When I run a rsync command like so:

rsync -raPv rsync://syncuser@X.X.20.18/hadoop_out/*/*.complete .

I keep getting asked to enter a password, what am I missing? this is supposed to be an automatic process which doesn't ask for a password, can you find the reason for this behavior?

Thanks in advance,

Answer 1

The secrets file is meant to define a password that remote clients need to supply in order to connect to the local rsync daemon, it is not used to specify a password for the connecting client.

On the remote machine, you can either use the RSYNC_PASSWORD environment variable to specify the password or use the --password-file option and store it in a file.