[path] & module options with SSH

[Alberto Accomazzi]

The discussion about syntax for remote file specification and the exchange
between Martin and Wayne about configure options for rsh make me wonder if
we should push some alternative syntax for specifying the transport protocol
to be used by rsync.  

I, for one, always stick to the rsync://host/module syntax when pulling from
an rsync server, and have often wished that the same syntax were available 
when doing a push.  I find the URL-style syntax easy to remember and understand,
while the "::" seems much less intuitive (it actually looks perlish to me
because of the way modules are specified in perl).
Among other things, I notice that SUN uses the url syntax in its man pages
describing NFS (they use nfs://host[:port]/pathname).

So what came to mind is to have rsync recognize and use both for push and
pull remote specifications of the form:

	rsync://host/module/file
	ssh://[username@]host/dir/file
	rsh://[username@]host/dir/file

I'm not crazy about the last two, but thought of them while reading messages
about ssh/rsh issues.  Hmm... one problem that this wouldn't solve is the
use of ssh-over-rsyncd that somebody has proposed, though.  Also I'm not 
sure how I would handle the passing of additional options to the external
transport program (what we do now with -e 'shell [OPTIONS]').  Ok, so 
maybe this is not so hot, but rsync:// is cool, IMHO.

-- Alberto


In message <20020206111216.A20115 at lucent.com>, Dave Dykstra writes:

> > Am I understanding you correctly when you say ssh and -daemon are not
> > working together when you use the :: syntax or are you saying that they just
> > don't period regardless of : or ::?
> 
> ":" syntax uses rsh (or ssh if you use -e ssh) to run another copy of the
> rsync program on the remote side.  "::" syntax skips that completely,
> ignores -e, and instead connects to a daemon separately started to listen
> on port 873 on the remote host.  In the future, when JD Paul's patch is
> accepted, the expectation will be that if you use "::" and "-e ssh"
> together it will still use ssh to connect but it will run rsync -daemon
> interactively so it can honor your rsyncd.conf.  
> 
> Does that make it clear?
> 
> 
> > Because, I do not have RSH, only SSH on my server and it does work for me. 
I
> > do have to use the SSH Verion 2 as I wasn't able to do it with the version 
1
> > and I use DSA not RSA.
> 
> That doesn't matter; "::" syntax bypasses both RSH and SSH.



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Alberto Accomazzi                          mailto:aaccomazzi at 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   
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