Win2K -> Win2K rsync

[Joseph Annino]

On 2/11/02 4:03 PM, "Mack, Daemian" <DMack at Tickets.com> wrote:

>> I'm working on such a thing.  No big problems so far.
>> I'm using cygwin to run rsync and perl, and I transfer everything over
>> cygwin's sshd service.  I wish some things were a little faster, but
>> otherwise its good.
> 
> If you don't mind, I thought I'd ask you a few quick questions: I'm trying
> to do essentially the same thing, minus the PERL.  I've got Windows boxes
> happily rsyncing to each other, but what I can't do is figure out how to
> make it all happen over SSH.
> 
> 1)  I'm pretty sure that incoming SSH connections need to authenticate using
> an actual system user account in the Windows 2000 user database, yes?
As far as I can tell, yes.  I haven't tried any fancier SSH tricks.
Authenticating using SSH identities does work.  Just like on UNIX, ssh logs
you in as a user, so there needs to be some user to log in as.  I'm not much
of a windows person, I haven't tried domain based accounts, etc, as I have
no way or need to do so.  I would guess its possible so long as you build
/etc/passwd correctly using mkpasswd

> 2) To get rsyncd and sshd to interoperate, is nothing more required than to
> do a rsync --whatever --whatever -e "/usr/bin/ssh" from the client side?  Or
> do I have to tell the server's sshd or rsyncd something?
That's pretty much it.
Technically, the -e or --rsh switches do not work with the rsyncd server.
Instead it connects via ssh, runs rsync in a special way on the server side,
and communicates via the new standard in and out that ssh gives you.  So the
entire transaction is managed by the client, there's no daemon running other
than sshd.

> 3) Does running rsync traffic over SSH happen entirely through port 22, or
> just the authentication piece?
Yes, the whole thing is encrypted.

> 4) Does running rsync traffic over SSH slow things down more than without
> SSH?
I haven't really tested the difference.  I would guess there is some
difference, and it may be bigger on Windows than on UNIX because of the
different process models and usual means of interprocess communication on
each OS.  My project pretty much requires SSH, so I won't be trying it the
other way.

I have noticed that do an rsync between two local directories is quite
slower than just doing a copy in windows explorer.  I don't think rsync on
windows is as smart of optimizing this special case as it on other
platforms. I noticed it wasn't ignoring a lot of command line options that
it should in this situation.  So I'll be looking for an other way to copy
stuff around locally in perl.
 
> If you can help answer any of these for me, I appreciate it very much!
> 
> 
> Daemian Mack



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