rsync to synchronize to a XP Computer.

[Matthew Flaschen]

Kipton Moravec wrote:

> So then I decided to just copy the files. For some reason even though I
> have a 10/100 card in both computers and a 10/100 switch between them, I
> am only getting about 200kb - 1MB per second transfer and it says it
> will take 24 hours to transfer the data.

Yeah, I would expect higher too.  But I don't know the exact cause.

> I can't figure out the syntax for rsync to copy.
> 
> I thought it should be 
> sudo rsync --delete -azvv -e ssh /home/backup/Work smb://main/c/backupw

Indeed, that is not valid.  rsync can do "local" copies, and it can copy
from your computer to a remote host running an rsync server.  "Local"
means here that the source and destination are both part of mounted
filesystems on your machine.  If you use smbfs (apt-get install smbfs)
you can mount smb://main/c/backupw so it appears as a local filesystem.
 So then it would be something like:

sudo mkdir /mnt/my_smb_mount

sudo mount.cifs //main/c/backupw /mnt/my_smb_mount -o username=myusername

sudo rsync --delete -azvv /home/backup/Work /mnt/my_smb_mount

Note that while this should work, it is not really ideal.  Much better
is to install actual rsync server on the Windows XP machine.  There are
a few available, three listed at
http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/3-ways-to-setup-rsync-server-on-windows/
.  Probably, your best bet is one of the cygwin ones.

That way, you'll get the benefit of rsync's bandwidth optimizations.
With smb as a "local" filesystem, you won't.

Matt Flaschen