Rsync and dispersed storage [Re: Pushing hard-linked backups]

[Matt McCutchen]

On Fri, 2007-12-28 at 00:15 -0500, Eric S. Johansson wrote:
> it is possible, I've seen it done, but I can't find the library/tool anymore.

I'm curious: what was the nature of this tool (if you remember)?  A
modified version of rsync?  A dispersed storage service with an rsync
daemon interface?  A virtual filesystem?  Did delta transfers work
properly?

> again with a pre and post processing capability, we could add that functionality 
> in without modding the baseline

It's not clear to me what kind of pre- or postprocessing capability you
are thinking of that would make dispersed storage with rsync practical.
A per-file approach with --source-filter and --dest-filter would have
the same disadvantages as per-file encryption, and by the time you
arrange for the retrieval filter to combine multiple files, I don't see
what you gain by having rsync in the picture.  Using rsync with a
virtual filesystem that implements the dispersed storage is more
natural.

Matt