[Cialug] Dropbox style service?

[Zachary Kotlarek]

On Nov 30, 2011, at 12:23 PM, L. V. Lammert wrote:

> At 02:17 PM 11/30/2011, you wrote:
> 
> 
>> Unison provides multi-master file sync across arbitrary sockets on Win/Mac/UNIX (and probably anyplace else with ocaml support). You'd have to wrap it  a bit if you want the dead-simple interface of Dropbox, but that's a much smaller job than writing your own sync client.
>> 
>> http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/
>> 
>>        Zach
> 
> Excellent - thanks! Since I have used neither Unixon nor WebDAV [also suggested elsewhere], does anyone have feedback on which would be 'better' and why?


WebDAV is built-in to many systems and has fairly simple interfaces for configuration. WebDAV mounts as a remote disk, so all files are live on the server and there can be no conflicts (assuming clients use locks when updating files). The downside is it requires live Internet access and it can be quite slow (both access time and read/write speed).

Unison uses the local file system, so there's no need for Internet access and I/O is fast. But since everyone has their own copy of the file and only synchronizes periodically it's possible to create conflicts, which either need to be resolved by hard-coded rules (e.g. host A wins, latest update wins) or manually by users. Unison also allows multiple masters -- all hosts are peers, so you can sync among any pair of hosts that has the same file set (which might be useful in semi-disconnected or hierarchical configurations).

	Zach

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: smime.p7s
Type: application/pkcs7-signature
Size: 2746 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://cialug.org/pipermail/cialug/attachments/20111130/04b368d4/attachment.bin>