How Do You Sync & Manage Your Home Directories? 421
digitalderbs writes "A problem plaguing most people with multiple computers is the arduous task of synchronizing files between them: documents, pictures, code, or data. Everyone seems to have their own strategies, whether they involve USB drives, emailed attachments, rsync, or a distributed management system, all of which have varying degrees of success in implementing fast synchronization, interoperability, redundancy and versioning, and encryption. Myself, I've used unison for file synchronization and rsnapshot for backups between two Linux servers and a Mac OS X laptop. I've recently considered adding some sophistication by implementing a version control system like subversion, git, or bazaar, but have found some shortcomings in automating commits and pushing updates to all systems. What system do you use to manage your home directories, and how have they worked for you for managing small files (e.g. dot configs) and large (gigabyte binaries of data) together?"
Dropbox (Score:5, Interesting)
I recently started playing around with Dropbox for some smaller folders than my entire home directory and haven't yet run into any major problems. And the versioning it provides is nice as well, and as a plus they don't consider the deleted files that they still retain versions of as part of the quota.
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It appears to be a very clean system, but I would be concerned about having open/unencrypted files on an uncontrolled server. Dropbox would be great if you could manage your own server, which doesn't appear to be the case.
thanks for the link.
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Re:Dropbox (Score:5, Informative)
Have a look at Jake [slashdot.org]. Official website: Jake [jakeapp.com]
It is aimed for the average user (no server setup needed) and provides a syncing solution across the Internet with a nice UI. Free and open source, available for all operating systems.
Check it out!
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Is it just me or has that site gone down already?
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Sure. Either look in the http://dev.jakeapp.com/documents/3 [slashdot.org]">introduction for new developers or on the mirror site
mirror site [univie.ac.at].
We don't have a git daemon just yet.
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I pay Dropbox for 50GB of space (I'm around 1/2 full, mostly pictures).
It's not perfect, but it's pretty damn good and I'm not looking back.
I'm too old to screw around with DIY approaches.
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I'm on the free plan at present, but Dropbox will get my money.
The ability to go back and restore files is nice too.
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Another me too ... since it syncs Linux/Mac and Windows it was perfect for me. I recently upgraded to the 50Gb plan - cant see myself going back.
( I hardly need the extra referral bonus space now but hey, it doesn't hurt either ... https://www.getdropbox.com/referrals/NTE2MjAzNTk [getdropbox.com] )
Re:Dropbox (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, dropbox is very nice. I'll second the recommendation. Dropbox can also automatically keep previous versions of files around. Works on PC, Mac, and linux.
If you need security, truecrypt with dropbox is nice. Dropbox supports incremental (delta) change file uploads/downloads, which makes large-ish truecrypt containers useful on dropbox. The only real limitations are that (1) you have to unmount the truecrypt container before synchronization can occur, and (2) you have to insure, manually, that only one PC/Mac/linux box is accessing the truecrypt container at any one time.
An alternative to dropbox is syncplicity, but I haven't tried it. The feature set looks similar, though.
Another alternative is jungledisk, which uses Amazon S3 to store your data. The advantages here are that everything is encrypted with a key (stored only at your end, unless you enable the web interface), that you pay only for what you use, and that there's no limit on storage capacity (as long as you have money). Disadvantages include:
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Re:Dropbox (Score:5, Insightful)
When I forget my USB thumb drive, I can log in to my Dropbox account via the web interface from any computer as long as it has net access.
What ever happened to all the true geeks on ./ ?
Whenever I need a file, I log in to my webserver and download it. With dynamic IPs, you can get business Internet access for around $70/month for 5Mbps symmetric (cable or FIOS). Hard drives cost around $75/TB, and you can host this sort of thing on just about any computer you have sitting around that can run Linux.
So, for about $75/month, you can securely store insane amounts of data, and get to it securely from just about anywhere. You could also upload from anywhere with just a tiny bit of web programming.
I still haven't set up the versioning sort of thing, but there are quite literally hundreds of them that work across a LAN if they can get to the filesystem for both the source and the store.
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Re:Dropbox (Score:4, Informative)
I had problems with earlier versions of LiveMesh but I haven't had any problems for a while. For a few months from November 2008 to February 2009 I'd been using both DropBox and LiveMesh. Now I'm using just LiveMesh. For me what swung it for LiveMesh was:
- Being able to sync any folder on my PC, e.g I sync my favorites folder between 4 PCs
- Being able to easily control which PCs get updated with what as I don't want everything synced between all my PCs
- Being able to configure folders to be transferred just PC to PC, e.g. I have 30GB of family photos that I sync between my wife, myself, and my parents accounts on their respective PCs. I don't need these photos in online storage
One tip though when using such sync tools - keep a backup as if one person trashes the folder it trashes everyones folder
Myself... (Score:3, Interesting)
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I do the opposite with my mp3s.. I have a media server in the living room that has my entire collection. from there I mount those (NFS, in my case) to whichever system I happen to be working on. Or I copy different songs onto my mp3 player before leaving the house with it.
For documen
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But doesn't that leave you open to crisis when one dies?
Or is TFA not talking about backup so much?
Personaly, though I have different uses for various systems, often find that I want to access the same data and having it in a central location is the best way to store it. So I have a central Gentoo install on a low power Geode board (runs at about 5 watts, up to 15 watts with drives spinning), with mirrored and regularly backed up storage (to tape and exchanged with a remote location's tape set when possible
"Distributed homedirs" or "CVS'd configs"? (Score:2)
I'd be interested in answers for this from the "I want the same homedir contents everywhere, but NFS makes me vomit" standpoint :)
For managing the default profiles around the office we use git - the dotfiles & such are managed, and the rest is left as an exercise for the user.
It's not ideal (I hate it), but it's what we've got...
SSHFS (Score:2, Informative)
Look into sshfs. Keep your home machine ssh-reachable (isn't it already?) and you'll be able to ssh into it, mounting the filesystem on your desktop. It's convenient, secure, and effective. Works anywhere ssh does. Good stuff!
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Personally, I would think for a simple home network, having an NFS shared directory is the easiest and most practical solution. S
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Yes, at the NFS option there is a yellow pages services implicit. Try NIS, it will sync your UIDs and GIDs.
Cloud (Score:2)
I have been considering this more of late as I utilize my new netbook. It's my first portable computer ever; I've clutched to my desktop since the beginning of time.
My comfort with this is directly related to who I can trust to store my data with. Right now, it's not a big enough need, so I'm reluctant. However, I can see my needs growing to a point where I'm going to take the plunge.
Any recommendations or horror stories anyone wants to share are welcome here.
Windows users? (Score:2, Informative)
Do Windows users even have anything like this, aside from Active Directory?
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http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=c26efa36-98e0-4ee9-a7c5-98d0592d8c52 [microsoft.com]
Re:Windows users? (Score:4, Interesting)
For home use (a mix of Linux and Windows boxes) where things are more involved I started using Unison [upenn.edu] for a cross platform solution but in the end settled on a simple RSync for the Linux data and SyncBack SE [2brightsparks.com] for the more complicated Windows stuff. SyncBack SE might not be free (it's $30), but it is lightning fast, extremely flexible and can handle very sophisticated synchronisation and backup tasks including versioning, support for more than one target, remote targets via FTP and email), bandwith controls... Worth a look!
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Check out windows live mesh ( http://www.mesh.com/ [mesh.com] ) . It works with Macs and windows mobile phones (no linux support :( ) and you get 5GB of cloud storage too.
Re:Windows users? (Score:4, Insightful)
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AD can set up Roaming profiles or use group policies and redirect profile folders to a central server. The benefit is everyone's data is in one place which can be backed up easily.
Roaming profiles are very bandwidth intensive, but the folder redirection isn't that bad, and I've used it for years at work.
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Well, all the data, except for their home dirs. But I guess that isn't important when you already have backup of their wallpaper settings.
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https://www.mesh.com/ [mesh.com]
"With Live Mesh, you can synchronize files with all of your devices, so you always have the latest versions handy. Access your files from any device or from the web, easily share them with others, and get notified whenever someone changes a file.
Working on one computer, but need a program from another? No problem. Use Live Mesh to connect to your other computer and access its desktop as if you were sitting right in front of it. "
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Robocopy works really well, and comes with Vista and up (works on XP, too). More of a bulk file copy than a sync, though.
Subversion may be overkill, but some nice free servers and clients exist for Windows. TortoiseSVN is a nice client that integrates with the shell; set up a server on a cheap home box and get a free dyndns alias.
Newer versions of SyncToy seem to work pretty well, and they're stupid simple, but I haven't used them on anything more than a flash drive's worth of data. Ditto for the built-i
Not strictly "home directory", but... (Score:3, Interesting)
Strictly speaking this isn't about my "home directories", but I use a combination of things to sync the information I need between my desktop and laptop:
1. Windows Live Sync (formerly known as Foldershare). Yeah, I know, it's from Microsoft, and only available for Windows and OS X, but it works pretty seamlessly and without much intervention on my part. I sync specific directories of projects I am working on using this; it's a set it and forget it tool.
2. Foxmarks for bookmarks.
3. Zotero, version 1.5 of which has the ability to sync resources between multiple computers. This is a godsend.
The old-fashioned way? (Score:5, Interesting)
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All by way of saying "Gee, wouldn't it be swell if I didn't have to manually sync t
Different tools for different purposes (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't recommend using one tool for every purpose. I wouldn't want to store multi-GB files in SVN, and I wouldn't want to store all my code on an external hard drive. Maybe using DropBox, or rsyncing with a server somewhere would work.
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I agree with GP, that different tools are good for different purposes. I personally use Git across several computers for code, documents, and other small files. Pictures go to my Flickr Pro account.
Store everything relevant on the home server (Score:2)
I just store anything saveworthy on the server at home. That way the "client" computers (my main "work"station/gamestation and laptops) contain only relatively expendable data. And if I need to access the stuff from some other location I just SSH into the box.
And backups are handled from the server manually occasionally to an external USB drive. I know, I need to improve on that part.
Xmarks for bookmarks (Score:2)
Not sure how much you use bookmarks, but I maintain a good archive of organized chaos myself. At one time, bookmarking a site was a pretty pointless endeavor, since I couldn't keep track of whether I had bookmarked it at work, on the bedroom computer, downstairs computer, laptop, etc.
So a while ago, I looked up a plug-in for Firefox called Xmarks (formerly FoxMarks) that was pretty much exactly what I was looking for. Very easy to set up and use, cross-platform, etc.
Just thought it was useful enough to
backintime, and rdiff-backup (Score:5, Interesting)
For small backups, every ten minutes, I use backintime (based on rsync). For larger, nightly or more rare backups, I use rdiff-backup. Both work over the LAN, or to locally-mounted hard drives.
USB drive (Score:5, Interesting)
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My flash drive is automatically backed up...
Now that's a neat trick. How did you make it plug itself in? Mine won't do that - it won't even come when I shout. Maybe it's time for an upgrade.
What about a FUSE FS powered by a MySQL DB? (Score:3, Interesting)
Beyond Compare (Score:3, Informative)
On the windows side there is a great utility called Beyond Compare, around $30, that I have used to do this. I even had a small client once that could not afford a real backup software, so we faked the backup using portable USB hard drives and the Beyond Compare utility to sync her server and desktop to the drives. Worked quite great and the while thing was done for under $200.
Windows - SyncBack (Score:4, Interesting)
I spent a long time tackling this, as I am situated at different locations on different days.
I have 2 desktops and a laptop which must remain sync'd and encrypted. I use TrueCrypt for the encryption.
On my Windows boxes - SyncBack handles it. It can be triggered on write or on insertion, or just periodically. Has version control support. Will sync over FTP (poorly) and can create zip files or burn Cds etc. It's a swiss army knife of sync tools.
The key for getting the most out of a sync program is granularity. Inevitably, you'll have exceptions, and you don't want a PASS/FAIL result for your entire backup set. It works much better to sort files into categories and sync the individual groups than to try to make one profile that does your entire disk array. My 2 cents.
Mobile Home Directory (Score:3, Informative)
At home, I've got a Linux server hosting an LDAP structure to mimic MacOS X Server's config. It is sharing my home directory via NFS. My Macs sync this home directory on login and logout, so all my personnal data is centalized for easy backup and available on any Mac I happen to add to my home network.
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Some info about the settings here [menzonet.org] (in french)
Rsync (Score:2)
Partway there, but data safety first (Score:2)
Right now, actual synchronization tends to be entirely manual, with scp of subdirectories and possibly a tar -c | tar -x combo to not overwrite newer copies.
I decided to work on data integrity first--but then I have client info to consider.
I have a 3x1.5T zraid array using full disks on the main machine, and an external 1.5T for backup (I'll grab another, so I can have two alternating backups). These will stay disconnected when not backing up, and in two other rooms of the house. I'll probably copy zfs sn
FTP (Score:2, Interesting)
FTP back and forth, select the root and overwrite whatever's newer. Unless the time on the files gets screwed up, it works fine. Worst case scenario, which is the dates/times getting messed up, the FTP client downloads everything. No big deal. I do it daily for all kinds of files.
As older, wiser programmers than myself have always told me: KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid.
rsync (Score:2, Informative)
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And it'll work for 99.9% of people.
I really don't get the desire for people to make shit more complicated and less reliable than it needs to be.
Very rarely would anyone need anything other than a simple sync job, manual or automated.
Arduous Task? (Score:2)
What?
If you have enough files and move between systems frequently enough that this is an issue, consider a USB flash drive.
Store your files there.
Keep backups on each machine.
Want versioning? Seems to me that files typically have a datestamp for when they were last modified. That's all the versioning people need 99.9% of the time.
If you're in a situation where this is a big problem (many users many files many machines), you want your damned files stored in a more permanent location, such as on, I don't kn
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Oh, and I'm assuming we don't trust /rely on "the cloud" or any 3rd-party online storage system.
(Because they shouldn't be trusted/relied on, and because in many cases they can't be, legally.)
The internet never forgets. (Score:5, Funny)
Unison (Score:5, Interesting)
Unison and encryption? (Score:2)
I am looking at Unison, and it looks interesting ... I may end up using it.
However, I'm also considering setting up FileVault on my laptop, because I don't want client data compromised if my laptop gets stolen.
What's the chance of getting a sync tool like unison working while one (or both) of the computers in questions uses FileVault?
Re:Unison is the only way (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been a very happy Unison for many many years. But after recently switching to Ubuntu for my laptop and desktop I finally discovered the joy of Unison over SSH and also discovered the auto=true and terse=true command switches which makes the whole thing automatic, just like Dropbox (I think there's one more switch and I won't even have to press 'g' to run the sync).
I've tried other solutions - DropBox is too much in the 'cloud' for me; rsync is only one way (what's with that?), Robocopy is Windows only,
Subversion (Score:2)
I've used Subversion for years to sync my various systems. I have four different machines (2 Vista, 2 Linux) and 20GB of data that must be kept in sync.
Of course, there could be somethign much better out there. I'm just very comfortable with Subversion, and it works.
Webdav, SVN, etc (Score:3, Informative)
For items that are larger, or that do not change so often, I use iDisk. This is just a fancy Webdav server that I do not have to manage.
I keep programs on an external hard disk. This is where I also keep my photo library and music and videos. I use one machine for Photos, so I do not really have anything to sync there. My music is not synced either, but I have used some third party software to hel with that.
It is getting to the point where if something goes wrong with a machine, I can have new one set up will all my data in a day. In normal circumstances, I can use any one of three machines and prety much have up to date information.
server and source control (Score:2)
Panix (Score:2)
I pay $100 a year for a Panix shell account and keep my data there. My own little server in the sky :-)
If you're willing to spend some $ (Score:3, Informative)
Doubletake software makes an enterprise ready, real time replication suite.
It does block level replication, so only the changed bits of, say, a 10Gb databse gets changed.. It uses on the fly en/decryption so that the data streams are somewhat smaller than they would be otherwise..
I work for a Fortune 10 company, and when we have a need for real-time data replication, this is what we use.
http://www.gbridge.com/ (Score:2)
bittorrent (Score:2)
tar cvf - /home | bzip2 | aespipe -w 10 -K /etc/homekey.gpg | bittorrent archive.`date +%s`.foo
unison/sshfs/rsync (Score:2, Informative)
My current setup is a combo of unison/sshfs/rsync.. I've been using it for quite a while at this point, and it works so well that I don't even give it any thought anymore.
I have a Media Center/Fileserver box at my house that is always on, and acts as the 'master' copy of the home directory, on all my workstations my .xinitrc/.xsession calls unison to sync my home dir with the server root as the preferred copy, then calls my WM, after my WM exits, unison is called again with the local homedir as the authorit
Space differences (Score:2)
I tried to sync my homedirs between machines, because it's annoying not having my settings and saved passwords etc on every machine..
But, the homedir on my desktop is 300gb in size, neither of my laptops even have that much space on them, especially the netbook.
On the desktop i can keep everything i need, but the netbook needs to keep as small working set of whatever i'm working on at the time.
Allway Sync (Score:2)
I absolutely love allway sync. Very cheap ( I normally never buy software, so low price helped ) but completely simplifies syncing between two home and one work PC.
It's never screwed me up once (fingers crossed!)
RSYNC (Score:2)
I'd like to give a shout-out to the Samba team and creators of RSync [slashdot.org]. Version 3 and later is what you want. It has many goodies that make backing up a joy, incleding an off-line incremental backup feature that I find really handy.
Still, I'm looking for a good graphical rsync that does not use cygwin on windows though.
Linux + Samba (Score:2)
Maybe I misunderstand the question but this seems pretty straightforward for those that might frequent this site. Did the option, "file and repository server" seem too obvious? Why use an online tool or some special software to share between systems? Why store the same data on multiple machines? Just mount a shared
Subversion & "outsourcing" (Score:2)
Why is there no discount online backup? (Score:2)
For large amounts of files (100s of GBs), the cheapest way to back them up is to use a couple sets of external hard drives, always keeping at least one set off-site.
I would like to know why this is the case. Why is there no service out there that can provide backups for large amounts of data at a price that is competitive with using external hard drives? Such a service should be able to take advantage of scale by storing the bulk of the data onto industrial tape drives, and only retrieving it as needed.
It w
Actually I am concerned about privacy (Score:2)
for example if I use online syncing utilities for my home drives, how do I know someone else won't have access to them? If I am writing a book or software project, how can I know someone won't steal it from me and claim it as their own?
I'd like to set up my own file server and have the synch software store the files there or to a USB drive or something. My old method is to burn CD-R and DVD-R disks, but they can get lost or scratched and then the data is gone. I have, for example, a DVD-R full of my old doc
The right tools for the job (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't share EVERYTHING, but I share some things:
ZFS FTW (Score:3, Interesting)
My Linux home directory is pretty tiny - only the dot files for my Linux environment (.gnome etc). I keep all my work documents and files on my OpenSolaris fileserver where ZFS provides resilience using RAID1 and point in time restores using the snapshot capabilities. I NFS mount the ZFS filesystem to my Linux box and CIFS share the same filesystem to my Windows PC and Mac.
My MP3 collection and photo albums are handled by iTunes and iPhoto respectively, syncing with my iPhone. The Mac backs these up to a Time Machine disk which in reality is a ZVol on my OpenSolaris server published as a LUN using iSCSI.
The ZFS filesystems and volumes are backed up to external USB drive using the "zfs send" command.
Blatant plug: I've documented most of the above experience on my blog.
For bookmarks, I use Xmarks to synchronise with the cloud, and take notes using Evernote.
Unison; and maybe git in the future. (Score:4, Interesting)
Currently? Just unison -quiet, running from cron. (I have it wrapped in a script that does locking, since Unison doesn't seem to lock against itself reliably, for reasons I don't understand.) I've had two problems worth watching out for:
1) Try to avoid running it against NFS. It walks the entire synced area every time you sync. Local disk will be two orders of magnitude faster.
2) Be careful syncing between case-sensitive and case-insensitive filesystems. Unison will start failing out if you ever create two files differing only in case.
Beyond that, I'm looking to start using git to version both my code and my textual data. I'm not intending to use git itself to sync the repositories; I'm going to use it for versioning only, and keep syncing using Unison. The reason is because I'm the only user, and for my own convenience I'd like the working copy to be synced. All I really need out of git is versioning anyway; I already have a workable solution for syncing.
rsync + OpenSolaris (ZFS) w/time slider (Score:3, Interesting)
Nighly (or more frequently, if you like) rsync to an OpenSolaris server running ZFS w/ Time Slider.
Quality versioned backups with little effort, plus data integrity (checksums built into the filesystem), compression, and (if desired) RAID-Z(2) goodness! In addition, the provided time slider interface allows easy browsing of versions.
Just my 2c...
shfs mounts by cron, rsnapshot (Score:4, Interesting)
I use shfs mounts by ( to make sure it stays mounted even if connection is interrupted) and ssh tunnels for everything else, with preshared keys to a central server / proxy, and rsnapshots for backup on the central server with hot swap drives.
This works on desktops, remote office, and for notebooks. I essentially don't trust my employees or myself to remember to encrypt everything or use "secure" protocals all the time, and so I remove the need to remember from the whole process. I can then focus on securing one system. Great if everything else is secure, but just in case. Very good for notebooks jumping from open wireless to open wireless systems, and also keeping track of employees activity in one location. I can log fairly easily everything they do or don't do (yea, the 2 hour coffee break sticks out like sore thumb in the logs).
Among other things this also has the nice side effect that should say a notebook or desktop be stolen, it will phone home as soon as it is connected to the internet and send detailed information about what it is doing.
Subversion with a touch of bash (Score:4, Informative)
I have found that using Subversion (svn) with the aid of a bash script that is run manually actually works really well and provides a number of special advantages. Here's how I have it constructed:
First, I don't actually make my whole home directory a svn checkout. I have a subdirectory in it that is the checkout, and my bash script ensures there are symlinks into it for the things I want sync'd. This makes it easy to have some differences between locations. In particular, I can have a different .bashrc for one machine than another, but keep them both in svn as separate files; it is just a matter of making the symlink point to the one I want to use in each location. My bash script will make the symlink if the file doesn't exist, and warn if the file does exist but isn't a symlink. It does this for a number of files.
Another benefit of this method is that I don't put all my files in one checkout. The core files I'll want in all my home directories (e.g. .bashrc, .vimrc, ssh .config and public keys, etc.) go in a checkout called "homedir". But my documents go elsewhere. And my sensitive files (e.g. private keys) go somewhere else still. I choose what is appropriate to install at each location (usually just the "homedir" checkout on boxes I don't own). My bash script detects which checkouts I have and does the appropriate steps.
The bash script not only sets up the symlinks but it also does an "svn status" on each checkout so I'll know if there are any files I've created that I haven't added, or any files I've modified that I haven't committed. I prefer not to automate adds and commits. I'll definitely see any pending things when I run my sync script, and can simply do an "svn add" or "svn commit" as necessary.
I also prefer not to automate the running of the sync script. I like being in control of my bandwidth usage, especially when connected via slow links (e.g. Verizon EV-DO, AT&T GPRS). Plus dealing with conflicts is much easier when it is interactive (although I can usually avoid that scenario). It also simplifies authentication to run it from my shell, as it can just use my ssh agent (which I forward, which is setup in my sync'd ssh config).
The sync bash script takes care of a few other edge-case issues, like dealing with files in ~/.ssh that have to have certain permissions and whatnot. And I've taken care to ensure that the script doesn't just blow away files; it will warn if things don't look right, and leaves it to me to fix it.
Using Subversion has another big advantage: it is likely to be installed already in many places. So when I'm given an account on someone's computer, I can usually get my environment just the way I like it in a few short steps:
svn co svn+ssh://my.server.tld/my/path/to/svn/trunk/homedir ~/homedir .bashrc not being a symlink and whatnot .bashrc
~/homedir/bin/mysync # This is my bash script to do the syncing
# Correct any complains about
~/homedir/bin/mysync
# Log out and back in, or source
No fuss, no muss. No downloading some sync package and building it just to get your .bashrc or .vimrc on a random box, or asking the admin to install something. Subversion is usually there, and even if it isn't, most admins are happy to install it. Subversion deals well with binary files, and even large files. For bulk things (like a music library), I'm more likely to rsync it, partly because it is bulk, partly because it doesn't benefit from versioning, and partly because it only needs to be a unidirectional sync. I could easily add that to my sync script.
I am simply in the habit of typing "mysync" from time to time (my .bashrc puts ~/bin/ in my $PATH). This works for me very nicely. Some people may prefer a little more automation, and of course my script could automatically do adds and commits, and even skip the log messages. But I prefer a bit more process; after all, this is my data we're talking about!
If there is interest, I may post my sync script.
Git (Score:3, Informative)
I use a constellation of git repositories, and Joey Hess' mr [kitenet.net] tool to synchronize all of them. I have no automated commits -- I just remember to commit and update manually daily.
Don't sync home. (Score:4, Insightful)
I've done exactly the same as you, used every single tool under the sun, eventually settling on Unison until I realised I was being silly...
Let's put it this way - just set up each computer how you want it, and sync the *data*, not the whole home directory.
For instance, my Documents are synced with Dropbox (though tempted to move them to UbuntuOne), my development directories are generally stored in some kind of revision control (svn/bzr/git) and either not synced or at worst, unison-ed, and everything else just stays on the machine it was created on, and backed up with duplicity to a central fileserver hosted in France.
When you realise that syncing home is *not* good, it suddenly becomes clear what you need, and what you want are completely different.
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Now that you have first post with that entirely informative response, do you care to elaborate on how you have implemented it?
Re:Svn (Score:4, Informative)
If i'd elaborated, i wouldn't have made first post!
However, i use subversion for two things - backup and syncing my development system with my remotely hosted web server. Neither of which is really how i "sync and manage home directories", but if i needed to do that subversion is what i would use.
Some months back, i foolishly pointed to my web hosting service that there was a serious security hole in the way their system (cpanel) was configured for subversion - and they killed the subversion service and haven't reinstated it. So i have to do 'svn update' over an sshfs virtual file system, which is mildly irritating.
Anyway, i've got a single repository set up on my system and i check in all new web sites i'm working on. Then i check them out onto the server - and update the files on the server with 'svn update'. It's easy, reliable, and reasonably fast. It also makes backup nice and easy, as i just sync the repository with a mirror on an external hdd.
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Some months back, i foolishly pointed to my web hosting service that there was a serious security hole in the way their system (cpanel) was configured for subversion
If it saved your data from security problems, it wasn't foolish. If it saved the ISP some trouble, it was downright heroic.
Now if the provider is exposing themselves as being sloppy, and you stay with them for convenience, well maybe that's a bit foolish.
Re:Svn (Score:5, Interesting)
I use git, with flashbake and cron to automate commits, and a simply cron job to automatically update a backup copy on an external hard drive.
And the Large Files? (Score:2, Informative)
Be patient with large files
.svn/text-base/ area. This means that your working copy takes up at least twice as much disk space as the original dataset. Beyond that, the Subversion client follows a (currently unadjustable) algorithm for committing files:
.svn/tmp/ (can take a while, and temporarily uses extra disk space)) .svn/text-base/
A nice feature of Subversion is that by design, there is no limit to the size of files it can handle. Files are sent "streamily" in both directions between Subversion client and server, using a small, constant amount of memory on each side of the network.
Of course, there are a number of practical issues to consider. While there's no need to worry about files in the kilobyte-sized range (e.g. typical source-code files), committing larger files can take a tremendous amount of both time and space (e.g. files that are dozens or hundreds of megabytes large.)
To begin with, remember that your Subversion working copy stores pristine copies of all version-controlled files in the
* Copies the file to
* Performs a binary diff between the tmpfile and the pristine copy, or between the tmpfile and an empty-file if newly added. (can take a very long time to compute, even though only a small amount of data might ultimately be sent over the network)
* Sends the diff to the server, then moves the tmpfile into
So while there's no theoretical limit to the size of your files, you'll need to be aware that very large files may require quite a bit of patient waiting while your client chugs away. You can rest assured, however, that unlike CVS, your large files won't incapacitate the server or affect other users.
Really, I think he's asking for one tool to do both small files and large files when (in my mind) it makes more sense to back up ISOs and MP3s over longer periods of time than my source code or docume
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Yes, I wonder what the shortcomings of CVS are. I'm using it myself and it does exactly what I need, so I assume that "shortcomings" depend on the individual (no penis joke pun intended).
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Re:Svn (Score:4, Interesting)
Or how about, why on earth would I use something like CVS for files (movies, mp3 files, photos of my kids) that can be quite large and will never change?
I too am looking for things to help manage the huge piles of various files I have accumulated and am leaning towards something like beagle http://beagle-project.org/Main_Page [beagle-project.org] and rsync/unison for backups.
Ultimately though I think dividing my files up into meaningful directories is a good start, especially if I start by putting everything that doesn't change into a subdirectory of a main directory named "Static".
Re:Svn (Score:4, Informative)
I have two main computers, desktop and server.
File layout:
desktop:Documents -- everything I want backed up regularly
desktop:Server -- symlink to latest backup from server
server:Documents -- a few server-specific files, and stuff I always want accessible (I turn my desktop off if I'm not using it).
server:Desktop -- symlink to latest backup from desktop
There is an @reboot cronjob on the desktop PC to backup the server, and tell the server to backup the desktop. I use the rsync --link-dest thing so I can have incremental backups (using hard links for files that haven't changed). There are a few other additions -- automatically deleting old backups (except keep a backup from every 10th day) and updating the symlink to the latest successful backup.
The script is written in ZSH, to take advantage of the fantastic globbing that's available.
The most important lines in the script are:
older=($backups/$user/*(/om))
($older is now an array of directories, ordered newest-to-oldest).
rsync --verbose -8 --archive --recursive --link-dest=${^older[1,20]} \
--files-from=$scripts/${from}2$HOST-I-$user \
--exclude-from=$scripts/${from}2$HOST-X-$user \
$user@$from:/ $backups/$user/$date/
(The variables like $from and $HOST are because I use the same script to copy some stuff to my laptop, but that has a small drive so I don't copy everything. I think the strange syntax after --link-dest expands the array like --link-dest=/dir/one --link-dest=/dir/two ... --link-dest=/dir/twenty)
over2weeks=( $backups/*/???????[012346789]-????(/Omm+14) )
end=$(( $#over2weeks - 5 ))
rm -rf $over2weeks[1,$end]
($over2weeks is an array of directories, being backups not taken on the 5th, 15th or 25th day of the month, and at least 14 days old.
$end is the length of the array minus 5)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
desktop-pc$ rdiff-backup
desktop-pc$ rdiff-backup --remove-older-than 2W ~/Desktop/
server$ rdiff-backup
server$ rdiff-backup --remove-older-than 2W ~/Documents
Note that I wrote that from memory, not from what my systems actually do. I'm in love with this damned program though - gone are the 90+ lines of bash I used to use for backing up my files, now I can do it in a couple of command
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
time machine is better (Score:5, Informative)
for backups I used to swear by rsync plus hardlinks. But since time machine came out it's oh so much much better. For one thing rsync is still a bit unstable on huge directory trees that contain lots of hard links. And it also boofs on some extended type attributes, forks and file types, though it keeps getting better (perhaps it's perfect now). Rsync + hardlinks also does not retain the ownership and privledges and ACL faithfully either.
But even if Rsync + hardlinks didn't have those troubles, time machine is so flawless it's just the thing to use. What is especially nice about time machine is the recovery and inspection process. it's not too hard to figure out what files chaged (there's even a 3rd party gui application for this) and because this info is stored in meta data it's faster and more relaible to retreive than a massive FIND command looking at time stamps. The time machine interface for partial recoveries is intuitive and easy to drill down. In many cases it's even application aware so you can drill not on the file system itself but on say your mail folders in the mail application. this is actually a pretty stunning achievement that needs to be seen to be believed how paradigm shifting it is.
And full recoveries could not be easier. you just boot off the CD and within ten clicks you have picked the souece and destination and it has done a series of idiot checks. While that might not seem too amazing, it sure is comforting. It's a mildly nerve wracking process of trying to recover from a back-up cause there's lots of ways to goof and maybe even wreck your original ( like oops, I didn't do a -delete, or I didn't tell it to reassign links, or worse I copied the wrong direction).
Here's a super nice tip: you can have two disks operating with time machine that you rotate. Actually the best way i've found is to have one constantly attached then on fridays attach the other one, redirect time machine to it, let it back up all the changes since last friday, then detatch it and let time machine go back to the main disk.
You can even use this as a way to sync your two computers though it's better as a backup than as a synch. have time machine back up just your home directory to a thumb drive, take this from home to work. plug it to the drive at work, back it up. then revert this to the backup from home. now home and work are synced plus, if there was one special file or two that was newer at work, well you have that in the backup you made! ( by the way to do this kind of thing requires fiddling with the backup cookie so two computers can share the same repository. google this if you want o know how)
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No - he was trying for 5, but only got -1!
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Yahoo's closing it's various services (photos, briefcase) taught me better than to use a third party service as a backup for anything important.
To answer the original question, I don't "sync" -if you're running different Linux distributions and/or Windows versions you tend to have botched settings if you try to (eg importing my gnome settings and desktop into opensuse. fun.). If I feel esp attatched to a specific configuration I tar it onto an external hard drive.
Then again, I only have two computers, not a
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)