rsync / cygwin hanging problem

jw schultz jw at pegasys.ws
Thu Nov 20 10:00:58 EST 2003


On Wed, Nov 19, 2003 at 04:28:38PM -0500, Jim Salter wrote:
> Has any progress ever been made towards fixing the problem
> causing rsync processes to hang in the cygwin environment?
> I've tried just using Unison in the windows environment,
> since it has a native port, but, um.  Unison is probably
> great for what it IS intended for, but it absolutely sucks
> nuts as a backup solution (has a tendency to choke and
> cancel the ENTIRE PROCESS without synching anything at all
> if it encounters a file it doesn't like, and there are
> LOTS of file types it doesn't like).

I'm guessing you are hitting the file locking issue but that
is just a guess.

> So anyway, I know the "rsync sometimes hangs under cygwin"
> problem has been acknowledged, but does anybody know
> anything about when it might be identified and resolved?

As far as i can tell none of the people who know the rsync
code use Windows with the possible exception of Craig.  He
has a patch that may reduce the frequency of hangs but his
recommendation (if i recall correctly) is to not use rsync
over ssh on windows.  Rsync apparently works OK as a daemon
on whendoze and when accessing an rsync daemon.

My gut impression is that there is a problem with pipe
delivery in the cygwin environment that is probably a
manifestation of a whenblows IPC problem or differing
semantics.  If that is correct this problem may be
intractable.

When will this problem be resolved?  That may prove to be a
question of perspective.  Some might say it already is.  It
would be nice if rsync were reliable on that other, legacy
OS (Windos) so if someone can come up with a patch that
actually fixes the problem without making the code even
uglier and without breaking any other platforms i'd be glad
to commit it.  But until then any "fixes" will remain as
external patches and rsync on Windows will be just like many
other things on Windows: it requires hand-holding and often
fails.

-- 
________________________________________________________________
	J.W. Schultz            Pegasystems Technologies
	email address:		jw at pegasys.ws

		Remember Cernan and Schmitt



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