From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: "Jon Smirl" Subject: Re: Redhat stateless Linux and git Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 11:07:57 -0400 Message-ID: <9e4733910606110807m41fe82er9c4876a88336209c@mail.gmail.com> References: <9e4733910606091559m6a88e864m16f9d75a507ee684@mail.gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: git , stateless-list@redhat.com X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Sun Jun 11 17:08:11 2006 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git@gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.176.167]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1FpRXq-0004Ht-Dq for gcvg-git@gmane.org; Sun, 11 Jun 2006 17:08:06 +0200 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751625AbWFKPH7 (ORCPT ); Sun, 11 Jun 2006 11:07:59 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751626AbWFKPH7 (ORCPT ); Sun, 11 Jun 2006 11:07:59 -0400 Received: from nz-out-0102.google.com ([64.233.162.201]:4088 "EHLO nz-out-0102.google.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751617AbWFKPH6 (ORCPT ); Sun, 11 Jun 2006 11:07:58 -0400 Received: by nz-out-0102.google.com with SMTP id s18so1451452nze for ; Sun, 11 Jun 2006 08:07:57 -0700 (PDT) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=rvDNjam9NVGusL7eY4doSG/8LQTBUv2YbonGDvd2i8uf/aqK5NOvDXUJj5JyIpCIYUsHhox7ATA88/Zhka+0wuONTSTI/0vxb1U/zyAXwlseAzE7KCLGl5ODKFn3CijN+IpK8seeEbnysSt6haFQkDYnVY83mc8CFTFV4/HuB5U= Received: by 10.37.15.13 with SMTP id s13mr7191720nzi; Sun, 11 Jun 2006 08:07:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.36.36.7 with HTTP; Sun, 11 Jun 2006 08:07:57 -0700 (PDT) To: "Geert Bosch" In-Reply-To: Content-Disposition: inline Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: On 6/11/06, Geert Bosch 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