rsync errors when backing up os

You're using a Windows filesystem, right? Like FAT or NTFS. I think the destination drive has problems with upper case folder names (Pod, Text, Simple, Q). They will be created with lower case and rsync doesn't find them anymore when trying to sync the files into the upper case folders.

Can you switch over to a native Linux filesystem like EXT?

Sorry, I forgot to mention the filesystems in use. I'm using EXT4 for everything but efi. EFI is vfat. All of the files are being copied to an EXT3 filesystem running as a samba share, locally it's mounted as a cifs.

Okay, so samba/cifs might be the problem here. Could you switch over to to BITs SSH mode? It's a lot faster anyways ;-)

Take a look at 'man backintime' Modes section on how to set this up.

I was definitely planning on using ssh first. I'm using the aur version of Back In Time. I'm having some issues with /etc/profile being read only on my router. I'm talking to my firmware's community to see if there's anyway to modify /etc/profile to get the correct login shell when running commands.

The shell is normally set in /etc/passwd

If I change the shell in there I can't login anymore, and /etc/profile is a symlink to the rom. Are there any other options?

What's the current shell on your router? I've tested BIT with remote sh, dash and bash.

Can you manually start the shell you put into /etc/passwd?

The default login shell is ash. I've set it up so entware switches over to bash once I login.

This is what I changed /opt/etc/profile to enable bash

#!/bin/sh

# Please note it's not a system-wide settings, it's only for a current
# terminal session. Point your f\w (if necessery) to execute /opt/etc/profile
# at console logon.

export PATH='/opt/usr/sbin:/opt/sbin:/opt/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin'
export TERM=xterm
export TMP=/opt/tmp
export TEMP=/opt/tmp
export HISTFILE=/tmp/mnt/Entware/history/.bash_history
export HISTCONTROL=ignoredups:erasedups
export HISTSIZE=1000
export HISTFILESIZE=1000
export PROMPT_COMMAND="history -a; history -c; history -r; $PROMPT_COMMAND"

# You may define localization
#export LANG='ru_RU.UTF-8'
#export LC_ALL='ru_RU.UTF-8'

if [ -f /opt/etc/bash/.bashrc ]; then
        . /opt/etc/bash/.bashrc
fi

export TERMINFO=/opt/share/terminfo

Is there anyway to make this profile execute instead of the firmware's on ssh?

AFAIK you need to enable 'PermitUserEnvironment yes' in /etc/ssh/sshd_config and put those lines into ~/.ssh/environment to use it in ssh sessions.

But this does not change the shell to bash. This is done in /etc/passwd. It should be something like
<REMOTE_USER>:x:503:1000:Linux User,,,:/shares:/opt/bin/bash

Can you post the output of 'ssh -vv USER@HOST' while login is not working?

Here you go.

debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config
debug2: ssh_connect: needpriv 0
debug1: Connecting to 192.168.1.1 [192.168.1.1] port 22.
debug1: Connection established.
debug1: identity file /home/zerophase/.ssh/id_rsa type 1
debug1: key_load_public: No such file or directory
debug1: identity file /home/zerophase/.ssh/id_rsa-cert type -1
debug1: key_load_public: No such file or directory
debug1: identity file /home/zerophase/.ssh/id_dsa type -1
debug1: key_load_public: No such file or directory
debug1: identity file /home/zerophase/.ssh/id_dsa-cert type -1
debug1: key_load_public: No such file or directory
debug1: identity file /home/zerophase/.ssh/id_ecdsa type -1
debug1: key_load_public: No such file or directory
debug1: identity file /home/zerophase/.ssh/id_ecdsa-cert type -1
debug1: key_load_public: No such file or directory
debug1: identity file /home/zerophase/.ssh/id_ed25519 type -1
debug1: key_load_public: No such file or directory
debug1: identity file /home/zerophase/.ssh/id_ed25519-cert type -1
debug1: Enabling compatibility mode for protocol 2.0
debug1: Local version string SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_7.1
debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version dropbear_2015.67
debug1: no match: dropbear_2015.67
debug2: fd 3 setting O_NONBLOCK
debug1: Authenticating to 192.168.1.1:22 as 'agartha'
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT sent
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT received
debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: <email address hidden>,ecdh-sha2-nistp256,ecdh-sha2-nistp384,ecdh-sha2-nistp521,diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha256,diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha1,diffie-hellman-group14-sha1
debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: <email address hidden>,<email address hidden>,<email address hidden>,ecdsa-sha2-nistp256,ecdsa-sha2-nistp384,ecdsa-sha2-nistp521,<email address hidden>,<email address hidden>,ssh-ed25519,ssh-rsa
debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: <email address hidden>,aes128-ctr,aes192-ctr,aes256-ctr,<email address hidden>,<email address hidden>,arcfour256,arcfour128,aes128-cbc,3des-cbc,blowfish-cbc,cast128-cbc,aes192-cbc,aes256-cbc,arcfour,<email address hidden>
debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: <email address hidden>,aes128-ctr,aes192-ctr,aes256-ctr,<email address hidden>,<email address hidden>,arcfour256,arcfour128,aes128-cbc,3des-cbc,blowfish-cbc,cast128-cbc,aes192-cbc,aes256-cbc,arcfour,<email address hidden>
debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: <email address hidden>,<email address hidden>,<email address hidden>,<email address hidden>,<email address hidden>,<email address hidden>,<email address hidden>,hmac-sha2-256,hmac-sha2-512,hmac-sha1,<email address hidden>,<email address hidden>,<email address hidden>,<email address hidden>,hmac-md5,hmac-ripemd160,<email address hidden>,hmac-sha1-96,hmac-md5-96
debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: <email address hidden>,<email address hidden>,<email address hidden>,<email address hidden>,<email address hidden>,<email address hidden>,<email address hidden>,hmac-sha2-256,hmac-sha2-512,hmac-sha1,<email address hidden>,<email address hidden>,<email address hidden>,<email address hidden>,hmac-md5,hmac-ripemd160,<email address hidden>,hmac-sha1-96,hmac-md5-96
debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: none,<email address hidden>,zlib
debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: none,<email address hidden>,zlib
debug2: kex_parse_kexinit:
debug2: kex_parse_kexinit:
debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: first_kex_follows 0
debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: reserved 0
debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: <email address hidden>,ecdh-sha2-nistp521,ecdh-sha2-nistp384,ecdh-sha2-nistp256,diffie-hellman-group14-sha1,diffie-hellman-group1-sha1,<email address hidden>
debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: ecdsa-sha2-nistp521,ssh-rsa,ssh-dss
debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: aes128-ctr,aes256-ctr,aes128-cbc,aes256-cbc,3des-ctr,3des-cbc
debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: aes128-ctr,aes256-ctr,aes128-cbc,aes256-cbc,3des-ctr,3des-cbc
debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: hmac-sha2-256,hmac-sha2-512,hmac-sha1-96,hmac-sha1,hmac-md5
debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: hmac-sha2-256,hmac-sha2-512,hmac-sha1-96,hmac-sha1,hmac-md5
debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: none
debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: none
debug2: kex_parse_kexinit:
debug2: kex_parse_kexinit:
debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: first_kex_follows 0
debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: reserved 0
debug1: kex: server->client aes128-ctr hmac-sha2-256 none
debug1: kex: client->server aes128-ctr hmac-sha2-256 none
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_ECDH_REPLY
debug1: Server host key: ecdsa-sha2-nistp521 SHA256:4XO+Bm6WgSd8AzViw+2l0Es2nEQpa3a8DbjHshQ1FlI
debug1: Host '192.168.1.1' is known and matches the ECDSA host key.
debug1: Found key in /home/zerophase/.ssh/known_hosts:1
debug2: set_newkeys: mode 1
debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS sent
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS
debug2: set_newkeys: mode 0
debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS received
debug1: Roaming not allowed by server
debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_REQUEST sent
debug2: service_accept: ssh-userauth
debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_ACCEPT received
debug2: key: /home/zerophase/.ssh/id_rsa (0x559d6a4f2e60),
debug2: key: /home/zerophase/.ssh/id_dsa ((nil)),
debug2: key: /home/zerophase/.ssh/id_ecdsa ((nil)),
debug2: key: /home/zerophase/.ssh/id_ed25519 ((nil)),
debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,password
debug1: Next authentication method: publickey
debug1: Offering RSA public key: /home/zerophase/.ssh/id_rsa
debug2: we sent a publickey packet, wait for reply
debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,password
debug1: Trying private key: /home/zerophase/.ssh/id_dsa
debug1: Trying private key: /home/zerophase/.ssh/id_ecdsa
debug1: Trying private key: /home/zerophase/.ssh/id_ed25519
debug2: we did not send a packet, disable method
debug1: Next authentication method: password

Oh, I need to change /etc/ssh/sshd_config on the local machine, not the router?

Hmm. This looks more like remote sshd doesn't find your public key. Wired. I'm sorry to say that I have no more ideas regarding this. Maybe the firmware community can help you on this.

No, 'PermitUserEnvironment yes' must be set in the routers /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Ok, so I just need to figure out how to wire up Entware, so it can grab public keys, and other login information from the default location? Should I just need to use some symlinks?

I'm not sure. Sorry. Might be that the ssh debug log is completely misleading.