Re: [Pan-users] Syncing Pan and Laptop.

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Thu, 24 Jun 2010 05:01:15 am Joe Zeff wrote:
> I've renamed this, because it has nothing to do with the original
> subject, and I don't like hijacking a thread.
>
> On 06/23/2010 10:57 AM, Zan Lynx wrote:
> > Use rsync. It'll make the transfer back go much faster. Plus it's
> > just an great program.
>
> Looks like a good idea.  Thanx.  One question: I have ssh access, and
> can do ftp over it.  Do I establish the ssh session first, then use
> rsync, or let it establish the connection?

I may have missed the context -- are you trying to synchronize two 
existing Pan installations, or trying to copy your Pan configs over the 
top of a fresh install?

If you're just copying data onto a laptop, into a place where there 
currently is no existing copy of the data (or the existing data is so 
different that it might as well not be there at all), rsync won't be 
faster, it will be slower due to the overhead of the rsync algorithm. 
Possibly that overhead will be trivial compared to the time to actually 
push bytes from one machine to the other, but the overhead can't be 
negative.

The only advantage of rsync is if you're updating data that's already in 
place on the laptop to bring it in sync with the data on your PC. I 
say "only advantage", but that's where rsync shines, and it's a *big* 
advantage.

Don't get me wrong, rsync is a brilliant hammer, for when you need a 
hammer. But when you need a screwdriver, use scp.


-- 
Steven D'Aprano