Keeping 2 computers synced

[Marty Metras]

We have 2 HP-9000's that configured the same.
One of them is out of state.
I want to keep the apps in sync.
I looked at a couple tools to do this.
(ftpcopy and rsync) Are there others?
There will not be a lot of changes to sync. I just want a script that I can run once a week to catch the changes I miss.
The line to the other computer is only a 192k connection and there is a lot of other traffic on it too. Meaning I will have to be doing the sync up on off-hours.
Can you help?
Marty

[Jean-Louis Phelix · Accepted solution]

hi,

I don't know if you've made a typo, but I also know rdist (but don't know rsync).

Regards,

Jean-Louis.

DESCRIPTION
rdist facilitates the maintaining of identical copies of files over
multiple hosts. It preserves the owner, group, mode, and modification
time of files if possible and can update programs that are executing.

[Ken Hubnik_2]

Check out rdist. Look at the man pages. It is a remote file distrubution package. We use it to keep some filesystems the same and schedule to do it a off peak times because of limited bandwidth.

[Clemens van Everdingen]

Hi,

I use rdist for several files, like host files etc.

C.

[BFA6]

Hi,

We use rdist to keep 2 servers synced. We run it from cron at about 6am.

Regards,

Hilary

[Marty Metras]

rsync comes ftom the Linux World.
I'll take a look at rdist.
Thanks for your help.
Marty

[Keith Clark]

It may be overkill for what you are looking for, but check out a product called Cfengine. It' GNU like rsync and meant for exactly what you are trying to do. It's really taillored for large configs.

http://www.iu.hio.no/cfengine/cfdetails.html

rsync is much more flexible and uses less resources then rdist. Stick to rsync.

[Marty Metras]

I may have over stated what I want to do here.
What I want to do is just sync of files not Apps. Both computer will be maintained with the same OS, ERP system and Database apps. I was just looking at keeping the chanes I make in sync. There always minor script changes going on and I only wanted to do this to one computer. Then the sync program could do it's thing. The second computer is a standby computer with a Oracle database that is in the standby mode and is being synced once an hour.
It is these little scripts that I keep thing about.
Marty

[Keith Clark]

Hi Marty,

That's why I said cfengine may be overkill for what you are doing, but it can do more then just scripts, etc..

We have groups here that use cfengine to propagate changes to lab machines and desktop workstations all over the world, so that they always know that everything is up to date. They include things like passwd, group, sevices, automount maps, etc..., as well as tools. For ascii files you can have it update only certain sections, or the whole thing. For example, you could have it update only password entries for a particular user, and leave the rest alone. You can also control the resources it uses (throttle). You configure it once and forget it.

For what you are doing, I would stick to rsync and schedule through cron. We tunnel our rsync's though ssh for added security. Unless you have some free time and would like to play with something new and cool, like cfengine....

Keith