Synchronizing 2 servers
 

The story?

I've got a server here that has a lot of data on it that will be constantly provided with new data. At home I'll have another "server" soon. The intention is that every sunday night or so the second server updates it's files from the first server over my LAN network.

My current server runs on Debian Squeeze. I'm planning to run the second server on Ubuntu.

Short readings on the internet thought me that rsync would be the tool to handle the job? Is this "the best" tool or are there others in the synchronizing-landscape?


Greetings.

Wannes

rsync is certainly the tool I would first think of for any kind of synchronization. Since it only transfers files that have changed since the last update it can be very good. However, if you were updating multiple database files it would transfer the entire file each time so you might go looking for something else that might do block level transfers instead of file level.

Unison is another good option.

http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/

I can vouch for Unison too.
It is particularly good in comparison to rsync if you need changes to be synchronised in both directions. (rsync is a one way sync tool afaik)

I believe unison uses rsync technology to transfer files, and I believe that it will also only transfer the part of the file that has been modified - not the entire file.

Unison also keeps databases of the last known state on both machines which means it does not need to send a full list of files over the network for comparison each time making it much faster, and more suitable for use over slower WAN links with larger file systems.

It'll be complete files in one direction in a LAN network with a bonded NIC devices. I think rsync will do the job fine after reading this and further readings on the internet.