[rdiff-backup-users] interrrupted backups recovering

[Jeffrey Forman]

I have one box being backed up to another on disparete networks, and
once in a while the backup fails due to dropped connection, or a box
being rebooted. My problem is, after a backup fails once, it never runs
again via its cron job, and errors out with this error: 

toucan scripts # ./rdiff-script 
Previous backup seems to have failed, regressing destination now.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/rdiff-backup", line 23, in ?
    rdiff_backup.Main.Main(sys.argv[1:])
  File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/rdiff_backup/Main.py", line
250, in Main
    take_action(rps)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/rdiff_backup/Main.py", line
222, in take_action
    elif action == "backup": Backup(rps[0], rps[1])
  File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/rdiff_backup/Main.py", line
260, in Backup
    backup_init_dirs(rpin, rpout)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/rdiff_backup/Main.py", line
292, in backup_init_dirs
    checkdest_if_necessary(rpout)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/rdiff_backup/Main.py", line
656, in checkdest_if_necessary
    dest_rp.conn.regress.Regress(dest_rp)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/rdiff_backup/connection.py",
line 440, in __call__
    return apply(self.connection.reval, (self.name,) + args)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/rdiff_backup/connection.py",
line 362, in reval
    if isinstance(result, Exception): raise result
OSError: [Errno 1] Operation not permitted:
'/backups/servers/daily/toucan/etc/shadow'
toucan scripts # Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/rdiff-backup", line 23, in ?
    rdiff_backup.Main.Main(sys.argv[1:])
  File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/rdiff_backup/Main.py", line
250, in Main
    take_action(rps)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/rdiff_backup/Main.py", line
220, in take_action
    connection.PipeConnection(sys.stdin, sys.stdout).Server()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/rdiff_backup/connection.py",
line 347, in Server
    self.get_response(-1)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/rdiff_backup/connection.py",
line 309, in get_response
    try: req_num, object = self._get()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/rdiff_backup/connection.py",
line 225, in _get
    raise ConnectionReadError("Truncated header string (problem "
rdiff_backup.connection.ConnectionReadError: Truncated header string
(problem probably originated remotely)

To get the backups going again, I have to restart it by hand. Is this a
permissions problem? or something we can run on the machine recieving
the backups to clean up after failed ones? any help is greatly
appreciated.

-jeffrey