4.10.2 resync

Usage: resync [ OPTION ]... TAR_FILE
   or: resync [ OPTION ]... UNTARED_DIRECTORY

Given a tar file produced by mailsync at some remote end and already reconstructed on this end using unshar, or a directory containing the already untared invoice, apply the synchronization package locally.

Option -n inhibits destroying or creating files, but does everything else. It will in particular create a synchronization directory if necessary, produce the `_syncbulk' directory and the `_syncrm' script.

The synchronization directory for the package is automatically retrieved or, if not found, created and initialized. resync keeps telling you what it is doing.

There are a few cases when a resync should not complete without manual intervention. The common case is that several sites update the very same files differently since they were last resync'ed, and then mailsync to each other. The prerequisite checksum will then fail, and the files are then kept into the `_syncbulk' tree, which has a shape similar to the directory tree in which the files where supposed to go. For GNU Emacs users, a very handy package, called emerge, written by Dale Worley <drw@kutta.mit.edu>, helps reconciling two files interactiveley. The `_syncbulk' tree should be explicitely deleted after the hand synchronisation.

Another case of human intervention is when files are deleted at the mailsync'ing site. By choice, all deletions on the receiving side are accumulated in a `_syncrm' script, which is not executed automatically. Explicitely executed, `_syncrm' will remove any file in the receiving tree which does not exist anymore on the sender system. I often edit `_syncrm' before executing it, to remove the unwanted deletions (beware the double negation :-). The script removes itself.

All the temporary files, while resynchronizing, are held in `_synctemp', which is deleted afterwards; if something goes wrong, this directory should also be cleaned out by hand. resync will refuse to work if anything remains to be hand cleaned.

TODO:
- interrogates the user if missing receiving directory in `ident'.
- allow `remote.sum' to be empty or non-existent.

This document was generated by Bruce Korb on June, 3 2006 using texi2html 1.76.