We have been using "rsync" for years as our main back up scheme.
The second "rsync <options> localdir username@remotehost:remotedir" works 
well.   On systems we back up over the net work they are listed 
in "known_hosts" each machine is listed.  A pain in the posterior to setup 
but worth the effort.
My personal opinion is that there is no need to update "rsync".   "rsync" as 
it exists on other M$ box's.  If I wanted to clobber some one the first 
scheme would be a nice scheme to implant, viruses, malware, and more on 
remote boxes.
A back up for a number of super markets data bases are using "rsync" over the 
net.   We even do this for our insurance clients.   This unlucky guy had us 
build a new system compete with back up on another system.  Thrives broke 
into his office and cleaned him out including his back up!   If we had not 
kept his old drives - he would have been out of business.   That is why you 
need a remote backup.

Larry Linder

On Wednesday 27 July 2011 4:12 pm, Troy Dawson wrote:
> Hi Paul,
> Yes, this is a known issue by us, and by RHEL.
> I have already yanked it from the yum repositories, and sent an email to
> the errata list with the following
>
> ------
> This errata has been pulled from the repositories.
>
> There is a bug in the 3.0.6-4.el5 version of rsync.
>
> rsync commands of the form
>
>      rsync <options> localdir remotehost:remotedir
> or
>      rsync <options> remotehost:remotedir localdir
>
> no longer work, since the remotehost isn't passed along properly
> unless there's also a username specified, therefore now require the form
>
>      rsync <options> localdir username@remotehost:remotedir
> or
>      rsync <options> username@remotehost:remotedir localdir
>
> A fix for this bug is in the works and will be provided as soon as it is
> available.
> ----
>
> And alternative is to do
>
>    yum downgrade rsync
>
> Here is the link to the bugzilla for it.
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=724041
>
> Troy
>
> On 07/27/2011 01:55 PM, Paul T. Keener wrote:
> > It seems that version 3.0.6-4.el5 of rsync that was made available from
> > the sl-security repo yesterday is broken.  In my usage:
> >
> > rsync -rlHptS --delete --rsh=ssh<directory>  <machine>:<directory>
> >
> > ssh is being invoked with no arguments.  This is, obviously, causing it
> > to fail.
> >
> > Has anyone else seen this?
> >
> > Thanks.
> >
> >       Paul T. Keener
> >       Department of Physics and Astronomy
> >       University of Pennsylvania