[lug] Commercial rsync service?

[Rob Nagler]

Siegfried Heintze writes:
> Is rsync via davfs going to be effective for daily backup?

Probably.  Why not try it?

> Unless you are using https I don't think it will be secure.

You can use https (except MS, which doesn't implement it).  There's
nothing in the protocol to prevent it.  I personally wouldn't worry
about a file transfer like this.  The vast majority of the data never
crosses over the wire.  The authentication protocol sucks, but there
ya go. ;-)

> What about non-ascii files such
> as executable images and databases? Will these have to be uuencoded for
> transmission across a WebDAV connection?

No, it's HTTP so it is binary.

>  Is rsync able to optimize when it knows it has a remote connection?

Yes, and it has a -z option, which means compress.

> Will it
> be able to optimize if it is using davfs instead of a remote ssh connection?

No.

> Would a remote ssh connection be both considerably more secure and faster?

Yes.  My only comment is that you are much more likely to find an ISP
who supports WebDAV (and probably over https) than one that supports ssh.

Rob