rsync - Jan 2002 - Non-standard usage of rsync

Hi,
I am thinking about a non-standard usage of rsync (at least not
mentioned in the man file)

I want to synchronized my collegues home directories(trees) each night
AND store rsync's internal updating commands (reversed) to be able
to restore the state of a directory the day before.
This would require
- saving the internal updating commands in a separate directory
- reversing these commands if not stored in reverse
- an option to rsync to apply these commands to a given
  directory.

Is this already possible?

Is it probably difficult to patch rsync to do so?

If yes, can the backup option be told to record new/deleted
files as well. In that case my aims can be achieved at (much)
higher disk space.

Thanks for any hints,

Helmut Jarausch

Lehrstuhl fuer Numerische Mathematik
Institute of Technology, RWTH Aachen
D 52056 Aachen, Germany

Helmut,

I suggest you check out rdiff-backup, written by Ben Escoto for that exact
purpose:  http://www.stanford.edu/~bescoto/rdiff-backup/

-- Alberto


In message <200201291239.NAA78931@numa1.igpm.rwth-aachen.de>,
jarausch@igpm.rwth-aachen.de writes:
> Hi,
> I am thinking about a non-standard usage of rsync (at least not
> mentioned in the man file)
> 
> I want to synchronized my collegues home directories(trees) each night
> AND store rsync's internal updating commands (reversed) to be able
> to restore the state of a directory the day before.
> This would require
> - saving the internal updating commands in a separate directory
> - reversing these commands if not stored in reverse
> - an option to rsync to apply these commands to a given
>   directory.
> 
> Is this already possible?
> 
> Is it probably difficult to patch rsync to do so?
> 
> If yes, can the backup option be told to record new/deleted
> files as well. In that case my aims can be achieved at (much)
> higher disk space.
> 
> Thanks for any hints,
> 
> Helmut Jarausch
> 
> Lehrstuhl fuer Numerische Mathematik
> Institute of Technology, RWTH Aachen
> D 52056 Aachen, Germany
> 


****************************************************************************
Alberto Accomazzi                          mailto:aaccomazzi@cfa.harvard.edu
NASA Astrophysics Data System                      http://adsabs.harvard.edu
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics        http://cfawww.harvard.edu
60 Garden Street, MS 83, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA   
****************************************************************************

> From: Alberto Accomazzi <aaccomazzi@cfa.harvard.edu>
> To: jarausch@igpm.rwth-aachen.de
> Cc: rsync@lists.samba.org
> Subject: Re: Non-standard usage of rsync 
> Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 08:58:18 -0500
> 
> 
> Helmut,
> 
> I suggest you check out rdiff-backup, written by Ben Escoto for that exact
> purpose:  http://www.stanford.edu/~bescoto/rdiff-backup/
> 
Many thanks!
Does anybody know where I can find the source of  rdiff itself
not the Python source of rdiff-backup).

Many thanks,
-- 
Helmut Jarausch

Lehrstuhl fuer Numerische Mathematik
Institute of Technology, RWTH Aachen
D 52056 Aachen, Germany