Re: Bug#128818: apt-rsync is great

[tim@fungible.com (Tim Freeman)]

From: Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@debian.org>
>I think the folks on -devel have gone over it enough, 

For the benefit of other readers, the conversation you're talking
about probably starts at:

   http://lists.debian.org/deity/1999/deity-199910/msg00002.html

and continues on the rsync list at:

   http://lists.samba.org/pipermail/rsync/1999-October/001403.html

>Quite simply, rsync uses tremendous amounts of disk IO, it reads the
>entire file on the server side and does lots of math on it, http on the
>other hand is intrinsicly rate limited by the requester.

I see.  rsync has a "batch" mode which might resolve some of the
issues.  It's described as "experimental" in the man entry for version
2.5.4-1 of the rsync package, which is the one in testing right now,
so maybe it makes sense not to depend on it yet.  The discussion cited
above is about 2.5 years old and doesn't mention batch mode at all,
perhaps because rsync's batch mode didn't exist then.

The as-yet-nonexistent compressor that is rsync-friendly would be
required to make a good solution for the whole problem.

However, I'm satisfied that building a version of apt-rsync that is
friendly to the server is blocked on the development of this other
software, so it's time to set this issue aside.

-- 
Tim Freeman       
tim@fungible.com


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