Re: Redhat stateless Linux and git

["Jon Smirl" <jonsmirl@gmail.com>]

On 6/11/06, Geert Bosch <bosch@adacore.com> wrote:
>
> On Jun 9, 2006, at 18:59, Jon Smirl wrote:
> > Redhat is looking for a scheme to sync the disk system of their
> > stateless Linux client. They were using rsync and now they are looking
> > at doing it with LVM.
> >
> > What about using git?
>
> The data model is fine in principle, but git as-is isn't suitable
> for general backup/sync-like schemes. Large (multi-GB) files
> are not really supported yet. Still, I think the underlying
> data model, with some modifications to split large files on
> content-determined boundaries, would be really great for
> distributed filesystems.
>
> Many people using laptops these days connect to different
> filesystems on their office networks, home networks,
> digital cameras and even their PDA, cellphone and MP3-player.
> What is commonly described as "synching", really is just a
> merge between different branches. All arguments in favor
> of using a distributed SCM hold here too.
>
> Right now I'm using a hodge-podge of different manual and
> semi-automated methods to keep my local filesystem with 1.5M
> files totalling 90GB somewhat in synch with various
> homedirectories on different remote systems and backup disks.
> IMO, git is tantalizing close to be able to handle this, just
> needs to get a bit more scalable. Probably you'd want to use
> a different user interface as well, but all the underlying
> data structures and merge strategies may be equally valid.

That's why I though stateless Linux was a good place to start. The
client is read only so it is the simplest case to start with. I would
much prefer a file orientated system for syncing over a block oriented
one, with the block one there is no easy way to tell what is being
copied to your machine.

I added the stateless list to the cc, maybe they'll join in.

-- 
Jon Smirl
jonsmirl@gmail.com