On Wed, Feb 06, 2002 at 01:09:22PM -0500, Alberto Accomazzi wrote: > Subject: Re: [path] & module options with SSH > > The discussion about syntax for remote file specification and the exchange > between Martin and Wayne about configure options for rsh make me wonder if > we should push some alternative syntax for specifying the transport protocol > to be used by rsync. > > I, for one, always stick to the rsync://host/module syntax when pulling from > an rsync server, and have often wished that the same syntax were available > when doing a push. I find the URL-style syntax easy to remember and understand, > while the "::" seems much less intuitive (it actually looks perlish to me > because of the way modules are specified in perl). > Among other things, I notice that SUN uses the url syntax in its man pages > describing NFS (they use nfs://host[:port]/pathname). > > So what came to mind is to have rsync recognize and use both for push and > pull remote specifications of the form: > > rsync://host/module/file > ssh://[username@]host/dir/file > rsh://[username@]host/dir/file > > I'm not crazy about the last two, but thought of them while reading messages > about ssh/rsh issues. Hmm... one problem that this wouldn't solve is the > use of ssh-over-rsyncd that somebody has proposed, though. Also I'm not > sure how I would handle the passing of additional options to the external > transport program (what we do now with -e 'shell [OPTIONS]'). Ok, so > maybe this is not so hot, but rsync:// is cool, IMHO.
It seems like there would be some pitfall, but I can't think what it might be right now. Web browsers typically only do reading so that's why I think it was only thought of for the source side. I looked back through my saved email, and it was Andrew Tridgell who added the syntax while I was the primary rsync maintainer. I didn't find any discussion of whether or not it should also be on the destination side. I suggest that you try implementing it and see how well it fits in and how clean the implementation is. I too am not crazy about the rsh and ssh URLs. - Dave Dykstra
