(As you probably know) rsynd and unison have not the same goals: rsync is a very efficient COPY tool, able to do it through the network, securely (SSH, ...) and even without a service running on any side.

Unison is aimed to synchronise two slightly diverging filesystems. It propagates changes in both directions, so it has to face the uncomfortable situation of files having been changed at both sides since last synchronisation. In this case, it leaves the final decision to the user, by calling a custom-made script.

If I need to synchronise a laptop with a desktop, I assume I might work on both, so update sometimes files at one side, sometimes at the other side. Then, Unison is the answer (I used it for exactly this goal with success). If you want to use rsync for that, you should rsync each time you change of computer: when you leave your laptop, you need to rsync to the desktop before using it, and reversly. Not that funny...

I appreciate both, and use rsync mainly for backups, or remote recursive secure copies. This is a typical one-way use, exactly what rsync provides. Sadly, rsync is badly named... It should be someting as "netdeltacopy" instead.

Yours,

Pascal Steichen a écrit : 
I experimented it. It is powerful and reliable.
    

THis unison looks nice, but I think that for Mike's situation a simple
rsync would be enough, I use rsync to sync between my desktop and laptop
and it works fine. The man is nicely written too ...

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Brent Frère

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