Rsync.net - a cloud service done the right way

Re:Rsync.net - a cloud service done the right way by propelledjeans on Wednesday May 01, 2013 @12:53PM (#5639123)

Now I'm curious - does Dropbox use rsync under the hood? (not rsync.net, the rsync protocol)

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Re:Rsync.net - a cloud service done the right way by Ygor on Thursday May 02, 2013 @10:44AM (#5644762)

There are 3 different concepts in play here:

- rsync algorithm

- rsync protocol

- rsync program

The algorithm is fairly well described here: http://rsync.samba.org/tech_report/

The protocol documentation is non existant (AFAIK), and basically the only standard is the rsync program itself. The protocol is strange, and there are some quirks, so it is not trivial to replicate or write custom clients.

This is why it is hard to implement an rsync program that can talk to the standard rsync program, but it is not that hard to implement your own client and server which use a custom protocol that implements an rsync-like algorithm.

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Re:Rsync.net - a cloud service done the right way by wmf on Wednesday May 01, 2013 @01:28PM (#5639362)

AFAIK Dropbox uses an rsync-like compare-by-hash protocol over HTTP.

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Re:Rsync.net - a cloud service done the right way by saosebastiao on Wednesday May 01, 2013 @01:33PM (#5639410)

I don't think they can...rsync is GPLv3.

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Re:Rsync.net - a cloud service done the right way by polyfemos on Wednesday May 01, 2013 @02:47PM (#5639988)

surely that would just apply to the rsync code, not a re-implementation using the same protocol?

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