comparing cvsup vs. rsync

[Matthew Dillon]

:I timed repeated retrievals of src from theshell.com over the past few
:weeks, and here's the result.
:
:Retrieving all of src:
:    cvsup averaged about 11.5 minutes
:    rsync averaged about 19 minutes
:
:Retrieving only the last 24 hours of changes:
:    cvsup averaged about 18 seconds
:    rsync averaged about 25 seconds
:
:Caveats: I didn't test CPU usage.  Also, this was with rsync 2.x - there's
:a new version 3 on the way that is supposed to have improvments.
:
:So, it looks like rsync runs somewhat slower than cvsup, but not
:catastrophically so.  Also, rsync can't do checkouts of particular
:revisions, so we'd have to have a certain checked out version of the
:source to allow people to retrieve given releases of DragonFly.  No big
:surprises here, and no clear indicator we should change.

    At this point in time I think I would actually like to switch to
    a more mainstream distribution system, and rsync seems to be that
    system.  I'm getting a bit tired of going through loops to support
    cvsup.

    We could just distribute the CVS tree and write a front-end utility
    in csh or sh that we distribute along with the rest of the system
    to do the nitty gritty work of actually checking something out into
    /usr/src.  In fact, I think that would be preferable.

    My only worry is figuring out how to run the rsync daemon safely.
    I'm a bit paranoid about running things on crater but I do agree
    that we would have to run the master rsync daemon there.

					-Matt
					Matthew Dillon 
					<dillon at backplane.com>