Syncing files on a home network

[Tony Arnold]

Cedric wrote:
> On Sunday 10 June 2007, Cliff Hall wrote:
>> I'm a newbie and somewhat command-line impaired.  I have a windows home
>> network that consists of my laptop, another few family members' computers,
>> an old laptop we use as a music server (it plugs into the stereo preamp),
>> and a linksys network storage device to which two hard disk drives are
>> attached (we use it for backups).  I would like to be able to sync my music
>> directory with the music directory on the music server and with the music
>> directory on the backup disk.  I can copy and move files around without any
>> trouble.  Is there any way to sync the directories across my network?
>>
>> I tried grsync, but couldn't figure out a way to get it to see the network
>> folders.  I don't think it supports syncing over networks.  Is there a way
>> to do it?
> 
> Hi Cliff,
> 
> I am facing the same problem. I've tried rsync, but there's a situation where 
> you loose data. Somebody at PC A creates a file, and rsync's it to the other 
> PC's. Then somebody at PC B edits the file, and a person at PC A also edits 
> the file. Now the one that does the rsync last wins, the edit made by the one 
> that rsyncs first is lost. As far as i know rsync has no solution for this.
> 
> I've also tried subversion. It can handle the situaiton outlined above, but 
> you have to tell it manually if there's a new file, directory, or if 
> something has moved. See also my (unfinished) article about it here:
> http://home.tiscali.nl/cedric/Linux/Software/Distributions/Kubuntu/Subversion_homedirectory/subversion_homedirectory.html
> 
> I have not tried unison yet. I'll take a look, and report back.

rsync is really good if you are only syncronising in one direction.
Unison will do bi-directional syncronisation. If it cannot figure out
which version is the latest, it will ask. There is also a GUI interface
(unison-gtk) which makes it very usable. It will sync bwtween machines
using ssh.

Regards,
Tony.
-- 
Tony Arnold, IT Security Coordinator, University of Manchester,
IT Services Division, Kilburn Building, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL.
T: +44 (0)161 275 6093, F: +44 (0)870 136 1004, M: +44 (0)773 330 0039
E: tony.arnold at manchester.ac.uk, H: http://www.man.ac.uk/Tony.Arnold