Truly awful rsync docs - Re: real Newbie query sorry!

[Stuart Halliday]

> I think you will find youre using rsync secrets in the config - thats
> rsync's own auth system.
> 
> read the manual about rsync authentication vs account authentication. 


Thanks Tomasz.

Surely as I've specified a secrets file then the password I use is the one in this secrets file? But how does it know which user I am? It doesn't ask for a username.


"read the manual".

Unfortunately the rsync documents are really awful. Some of the worse I've seen in my 15 years as a IT support engineer.

They appear to be written by rsync users FOR rsync users and don't help a beginner like myself.

I looked at the 'manual' and there is NOTHING about 'rsync authentication vs account authentication'.


I assume you meant the MAN page at:
http://rsync.samba.org/ftp/rsync/rsync.html

 
This page talks about things I've never used like ssh and rcp.

As it starts off with a list of options it is obvious not meant to be a true manual, just a reference document for existing users.


The SETUP section is a joke as it starts off by refering you to another text file! Then after you look at this other file you're none the wiser.

Why isn't there a beginners guide to setting up rsync?


The rsync front page talks of a tutorial by devshed at:
http://www.devshed.com/c/b/Administration#/Rsync/page1.html

Except there isn't one....

It's now: 
http://www.devshed.com/c/a/Administration/File-Synchronization-With-Rsync/

Quite why the official main rsync site would rely on an external 3rd party web site to have their tutorial is not good. External web sites come and go....

It looks like rsync docs were written by a seasoned user years ago in a plain text file and this text file was dumped as a 'HTML file' with no attempt to make it web friendly. It appears to have had syntax errors corrected over a number of years with no attempt made to make it beginner friendly.

After looking through devshed's article I see there are TWO rsync web site which look very similar.
http://www.samba.org/rsync/  and http://rsync.samba.org/

This just confuses me. ;-)

If I ever get rsync working, I'll have to write a better manual. :-)