[rdiff-backup-users] What happens with mirror corruption?

[Chris Wilson]

Hi Ben and all,

I was thinking about what might happen if the rdiff-backup destination
mirror copy became corrupted somehow (e.g. neutrino strike, bad disk
bits, bad RAM, etc) and I have a question.

If the repository's mirror copy becomes slightly corrupted (one file's
data changes slightly for no good reason), and a subsequent backup
operation is run against it, the next backup should correct the
corruption to make the destination mirror file again match the source?
(I assume so).

Does this count as an "increment" operation? (again, I assume so).

If so, then restoring the corrupted file to a point before the
corruption will re-introduce it, by undoing the corrective increment?
(previous incremental diffs, applied in reverse, will either fail to
apply if they touch the corrupted bit, or apply cleanly and leave the
corruption in place).

Could rdiff-backup check for and avoid this? Presumably the strong
checksum stored in the metadata should match the file's checksum on the
source, not the target? Thus, if on a subsequent backup operation the
mirror file's checksum no longer matches the one in the most recent
metadata, this could only have happened by corruption of the mirror? 
(or possibly, the source file changed during the backup).

In this case, if the source file still matches the metadata checksum
(i.e. hasn't changed since the last backup), could rdiff-backup correct
the mirror _without_ writing an increment, so that subsequent restores
of that file past the corruption point will correctly restore the file
without corruption?

If the source file has changed since the last backup, rdiff-backup would
not be able to repair the damage to the mirror, but could it at least
give a stern warning to the user in either case, that the mirror file
was corrupted? (and if the source has changed, that restoring past that
point will produce a corrupted file)

Sorry if you've already considered and accounted for this.

Happy new year to you all!

Cheers, Chris.
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