Re: [Jfilesync-news] review of JFileSync

[Jens H. <jhe...@rh...>]

Hi Tom:

First of all, thanks for your detailed review of JFS :-)

plastic rat wrote:
> You may be interested to know I have written a review of JFileSync and a comparison with other file synchronizers, it is at http://www.tomkelsey.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/projects/synchronizer_review.html, please reply with any comments.

Here are some comments to some features requested and our plans for the
future:

A) 'token' mode
Yes, that's an interesting feature and on our my todo list for some time
;-). The original plan was to create a kind of patch package you apply
to a certain file system in order to sync it with another one. The
package should be created based on an XML representation of the file
system structure you want to synchronize (like the current
synchronization history) and contains a set of commands (files to copy
and delete) and the corresponding files that would have to be modified.

May be, I have some time to work on it for 2.2, but it's unlikely,
because current effort is more focused on JFS usability issues.

B) client-server compressed protocol
C) client-server encrypted protocol
Yes, JFS has a built-in server that doesn't support compression nor
encryption. The usage scenario is to use this server as part of an SSH
tunnel (which usually is able to support this kind of stuff). I'm
thinking of directly supporting connections to an SFTP server, but this
would limit server client connections to Unix (and Cygwin-based)
systems. It should also be easier to use the server from the GUI in the
future. For encrypten we would have to use SSLSockets, which would
perfectly be possible, but nobody demanded it so far ;-).

D) >2 machines
JFS stores a history for each file pair; so a source directory can be
synchronized with multiple target directories (or vice versa ;-).
However, if you connect an external drive that uses drive letters (e.g.,
"D:") you will have problems because the file pairs look the same even
if different external drives will be connected to your system
subsequently (always e.g., src="c:\MyData", tgt="d:\MyData"). If you
access multiple network drives, for instance, there should be no problem
with mixing up histories (e.g., pair 1: src="c:\MyData",
tgt="\\test1\MyData" and pair 2: src="c:\MyData", tgt="\\test2\MyData").

E) select single files
Yes, only directories can be part of sync profiles.

F) use non RW media
Yes, it is only supported by the underlying system drivers (if your OS
is able to integrate the CD-R as a standard drive that can be accessed
like any other folder).

G) dummy mode
JFS only supports a "test mode" (via Profile Manager -> Advanced), it
will only simulate a synchronization, but it will, however, not output
the files that have to be copied and deleted, but you may view these
files anyway by pressing "Show Details" before starting a synchronization.


Thanks again for your review and for evaluating JFileSync :-).


Cheers,

Jens.