cpdup work heads-up

[Vincent Stemen]

On Fri, Apr 11, 2008 at 03:32:42PM -0700, Matthew Dillon wrote:
> 
> :I have used cpdup a few times. Today I read some more in the manpage.
> :I see it can do synchronize mirrors remotely. This sounds great.
> :
> :Has anyone done any comparisons or benchmarks between it and rsync? I am 
> :especially curious if should start using cpdup instead :)
> 
>     Well, I doubt it would be faster then rsync.  rsync uses a more
>     efficient algorithm that batches better over connections.  cpdup's
>     remote algorithm is kinda ad-hoc and uses synchronous transactions
>     (-p allows multiple synchronous transactions to be run in parallel).
>     cpdup isn't meant to do rsync's job.
> 
>     On the otherhand, cpdup is a bit more user-friendly, and cpdup can
>     do third party copies (both source and target are remote-host specs).
> ...

Hi.  That's interesting.  I didn't know about cpdup.  

However, since you are on the subject, I thought I would let you guys
know about rbu and offer to put it up for download if you have a need
for it.  

I am the author of bu (http://hightek.org/bu).  I have re-written bu
purely in perl which uses rsync under the covers, so it has remote
backup capability.  Bu was designed for FS to FS backups so the
destination had to be a mounted file system (local, NFS, etc).

I currently call it rbu for "Rsync based BU".  My plan is for it to
eventually be renamed to "bu" and completely replace bu.

Rbu is much more simple to use for backups than directly using rsync.
I have not released it yet because I have not had the time to implement
include/exclude lists or prepare and document an official release.
Although, it does have online help with -h.  In fact, I have not even
announced it's existence on the bu mailing list yet.

rbu, like bu, is designed to always properly duplicate the original file
system underneath the destination directory no matter how the source is
specified.  See the bu docs for details.

If anybody wants me to make it available or has any questions, don't
hesitate to let me know.

It would not be packaged with readme's or include install scripts yet,
but it works stand alone.  We have been running it on DragonFly for the
last several months and it has been stable.

It is very simple to use.  An example from the online usage,

    rbu .
        Backup the current working directory to the default backup directory
        specified in $bu_dest.    (alexandria:/backups/quark)

It can work along side of bu and shares the same configuration file.  If
you use it with bu, there are one or two caveats.  Just ask and I will
provide more info.