Overview
--------

dsync is a pair of simple shell scripts that I use for for synchronizing files
(.bashrc, .emacs, address book, .xinitrc, ...) among various machines.  It
uses CVS to merge changes made on different machines.

This is a work in progress; you probably shouldn't use it unless you're
willing to lose data.  All the usual disclaimers apply.

Installation
------------

1. Select a machine as your dsync server and put dsyncd in a non-dsynced
component of your PATH on that machine.  Your dsync server may also be a
client.

2. Copy dsync to some non-dsynced location on each client machine.

Usage
-----

Periodically, on each client machine, run:

  dsync <client-name> <dsync-server> <dsync-server-dir> <sync-dirs>

where
  <client-name>       is the name of the local machine, used as a CVS tag
  <dsync-server>      is the machine where the CVS repository lives
  <dsync-server-dir>  is the directory on <dsync-server> where the CVS
                      repository lives
  <sync-dirs>         is one or more directories on the local machine to
                      synchronize with the repository

The repository on the server will be created and updated automatically as
needed.  When adding a new client for one or more <sync-dirs> that exist on
the server, dsync will abort if <sync-dirs> already exists on the client.

As a special case, when previously-synced directory is deleted on a client,
the next sync will restore that directory on the client.

For convenience, I alias "ds" on each of my machines to the appropriate dsync
invocation.  For example, on my laptop nog.nick.duffek.com with dsync server
nod.nick.duffek.com, ds is aliased to:

  dsync nog nod.nick.duffek.com /home/nsd/.share \
      /home/nsd/share /home/nsd/share-all /home/nsd/bin

Implementation
--------------

"dsync" is a tiny shell script that starts rsync in daemon mode, opens an ssh
connection to <dsync-server>, forwards a port to rsync, and runs "dsyncd" on
<dsync-server>.

"dsyncd" is a shell script that rsyncs files from the client, merges them
into the repository, and rsyncs the results back to the client.

Requirements
------------

On the server:
  cvs
  sshd
  rsync
  sh

On each client:
  ssh
  rsync
  sh

Bug Reports
-----------

Please send bug reports to Nick Duffek <nick@duffek.com>.

Changes
-------

dsync-0.2, December 24, 2003

  * Abort if any command fails in dsyncd.  Should be much safer now.
  * Improve documentation a bit.
  * When adding a new client for an extant directory on the server, require
    that the directory not exist on the client beforehand.
  * Add the special case of restoring deleted client directories.
  * Get file deletion working properly.
  * Don't let .#* files accumulate.

dsync-0.1, March 7, 2003

  * Initial revision.