Re: pg_dump failed with error code 255, but I don't see why

Ron <ronljohnsonjr(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:

> On 9/22/22 09:34, Tom Lane wrote:
>
>> Ron <ronljohnsonjr(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
>>> v9.6.2.23
>>> I always run pg_dump with the --verbose option, and the bash script echos
>>> $?, so there's a 25,664 line log file for me to examine which explicitly
>>> shows the return code.
>> A quick search of the 9.6 pg_dump source code shows that it only
>> ever calls exit() with values 0 or 1. 255 would have to be coming
>> from some outside factor. You sure your shell script isn't
>> misbehaving and corrupting the reported return code?
>
> Good to know.  The RC might be from ssh (the actual command being "ssh
> postgres(at)HOSTNAME pg_dump ...".

FWIW, here's what my ssh man page says, and a contrived example.

So it seems your ssh call itself borked for some reason perhaps.

EXIT STATUS
ssh exits with the exit status of the remote command or with 255 if an
error occurred.

tmp$ ssh localhost false; echo $?
1
tmp$ ssh no-such-host true; echo $?
ssh: Could not resolve hostname no-such-host: nodename nor servname provided, or not known
255
tmp$