Got rid of kluged value for am_sender, and instead added a new

[rsync/rsync.git] / TODO

diff --git a/TODO b/TODO
index e035e6c..f73cebe 100644 (file)
--- a/TODO
+++ b/TODO
@@ -1,136 +1,86 @@
 -*- indented-text -*-
 
 BUGS ---------------------------------------------------------------
 -*- indented-text -*-
 
 BUGS ---------------------------------------------------------------

+Do not rely on having a group called "nobody"

 
 

-There seems to be a bug with hardlinks
-
-  mbp/2 build$ ls -l /tmp/a /tmp/b -i
-  /tmp/a:
-  total 32
-  2568307 -rw-rw-r--    3 mbp      mbp            29 Mar 25 17:30 a1
-  2568307 -rw-rw-r--    3 mbp      mbp            29 Mar 25 17:30 a2
-  2568307 -rw-rw-r--    3 mbp      mbp            29 Mar 25 17:30 a3
-  2568310 -rw-rw-r--    5 mbp      mbp            29 Mar 25 17:30 a4
-  2568310 -rw-rw-r--    5 mbp      mbp            29 Mar 25 17:30 a5
-  2568310 -rw-rw-r--    5 mbp      mbp            29 Mar 25 17:30 b1
-  2568310 -rw-rw-r--    5 mbp      mbp            29 Mar 25 17:30 b2
-  2568310 -rw-rw-r--    5 mbp      mbp            29 Mar 25 17:30 b3
-
-  /tmp/b:
-  total 32
-  2568309 -rw-rw-r--    3 mbp      mbp            29 Mar 25 17:30 a1
-  2568309 -rw-rw-r--    3 mbp      mbp            29 Mar 25 17:30 a2
-  2568309 -rw-rw-r--    3 mbp      mbp            29 Mar 25 17:30 a3
-  2568311 -rw-rw-r--    5 mbp      mbp            29 Mar 25 17:30 a4
-  2568311 -rw-rw-r--    5 mbp      mbp            29 Mar 25 17:30 a5
-  2568311 -rw-rw-r--    5 mbp      mbp            29 Mar 25 17:30 b1
-  2568311 -rw-rw-r--    5 mbp      mbp            29 Mar 25 17:30 b2
-  2568311 -rw-rw-r--    5 mbp      mbp            29 Mar 25 17:30 b3
-  mbp/2 build$ rm -r /tmp/b && ./rsync -avH /tmp/a/ /tmp/b
-  building file list ... done
-  created directory /tmp/b
-  ./
-  a1
-  a4
-  a2 => a1
-  a3 => a2
-  wrote 350 bytes  read 52 bytes  804.00 bytes/sec
-  total size is 232  speedup is 0.58
-  mbp/2 build$ rm -r /tmp/b
-  mbp/2 build$ ls -l /tmp/b
-  ls: /tmp/b: No such file or directory
-  mbp/2 build$ rm -r /tmp/b && ./rsync -avH /tmp/a/ /tmp/b
-  rm: cannot remove `/tmp/b': No such file or directory
-  mbp/2 build$ rm -f -r /tmp/b && ./rsync -avH /tmp/a/ /tmp/b
-  building file list ... done
-  created directory /tmp/b
-  ./
-  a1
-  a4
-  a2 => a1
-  a3 => a2
-  wrote 350 bytes  read 52 bytes  804.00 bytes/sec
-  total size is 232  speedup is 0.58
-  mbp/2 build$ ls -l /tmp/b
-  total 32
-  -rw-rw-r--    3 mbp      mbp            29 Mar 25 17:30 a1
-  -rw-rw-r--    3 mbp      mbp            29 Mar 25 17:30 a2
-  -rw-rw-r--    3 mbp      mbp            29 Mar 25 17:30 a3
-  -rw-rw-r--    5 mbp      mbp            29 Mar 25 17:30 a4
-  -rw-rw-r--    5 mbp      mbp            29 Mar 25 17:30 a5
-  -rw-rw-r--    5 mbp      mbp            29 Mar 25 17:30 b1
-  -rw-rw-r--    5 mbp      mbp            29 Mar 25 17:30 b2
-  -rw-rw-r--    5 mbp      mbp            29 Mar 25 17:30 b3
-  mbp/2 build$ ls -l /tmp/a
-  total 32
-  -rw-rw-r--    3 mbp      mbp            29 Mar 25 17:30 a1
-  -rw-rw-r--    3 mbp      mbp            29 Mar 25 17:30 a2
-  -rw-rw-r--    3 mbp      mbp            29 Mar 25 17:30 a3
-  -rw-rw-r--    5 mbp      mbp            29 Mar 25 17:30 a4
-  -rw-rw-r--    5 mbp      mbp            29 Mar 25 17:30 a5
-  -rw-rw-r--    5 mbp      mbp            29 Mar 25 17:30 b1
-  -rw-rw-r--    5 mbp      mbp            29 Mar 25 17:30 b2
-  -rw-rw-r--    5 mbp      mbp            29 Mar 25 17:30 b3
-
-
-Progress indicator can produce corrupt output when transferring directories:
-
-  main/binary-arm/
-  main/binary-arm/admin/
-  main/binary-arm/base/
-  main/binary-arm/comm/8.56kB/s    0:00:52
-  main/binary-arm/devel/
-  main/binary-arm/doc/
-  main/binary-arm/editors/
-  main/binary-arm/electronics/s    0:00:53
-  main/binary-arm/games/
-  main/binary-arm/graphics/
-  main/binary-arm/hamradio/
-  main/binary-arm/interpreters/
-  main/binary-arm/libs/6.61kB/s    0:00:54
-  main/binary-arm/mail/
-  main/binary-arm/math/
-  main/binary-arm/misc/
-
-lchmod
-  I don't think we handle this properly on systems that don't have the
-  call.
-
-Cross-test versions
-  Part of the regression suite should be making sure that we don't
-  break backwards compatibility: old clients vs new servers and so
-  on.  Ideally we would test the cross product of versions.  
+FEATURES ------------------------------------------------------------
+Use chroot only if supported
+Allow supplementary groups in rsyncd.conf                      2002/04/09
+Handling IPv6 on old machines
+Other IPv6 stuff:
+Add ACL support                                                        2001/12/02
+Lazy directory creation
+proxy authentication                                           2002/01/23
+SOCKS                                                          2002/01/23
+FAT support
+Allow forcing arbitrary permissions                            2002/03/12
+--diff                                         david.e.sewell  2002/03/15
+Add daemon --no-fork option
+Create more granular verbosity                         jw      2003/05/15

 
 

-  It might be sufficient to test downloads from well-known public
-  rsync servers running different versions of rsync.  This will give
-  some testing and also be the most common case for having different
-  versions and not being able to upgrade.
+DOCUMENTATION --------------------------------------------------------
+Keep list of open issues and todos on the web site
+Perhaps redo manual as SGML

 
 

+LOGGING --------------------------------------------------------------
+Memory accounting
+Improve error messages
+Better statistics:                                     Rasmus  2002/03/08
+Perhaps flush stdout like syslog
+Log deamon sessions that just list modules
+Log child death on signal
+Log errors with function that reports process of origin
+verbose output                                 David Stein     2001/12/20
+internationalization

 
 

-DAEMON --------------------------------------------------------------
+DEVELOPMENT --------------------------------------------------------
+Handling duplicate names
+Use generic zlib                                               2002/02/25
+TDB:                                                           2002/03/12
+Splint                                                         2002/03/12
+
+PERFORMANCE ----------------------------------------------------------
+File list structure in memory
+Traverse just one directory at a time
+Allow skipping MD4 file_sum                                    2002/04/08
+Accelerate MD4
+
+TESTING --------------------------------------------------------------
+Torture test
+Cross-test versions                                            2001/08/22
+Test on kernel source
+Test large files
+Create mutator program for testing
+Create configure option to enable dangerous tests
+If tests are skipped, say why.
+Test daemon feature to disallow particular options.
+Create pipe program for testing
+Create test makefile target for some tests

 
 

-server-imposed bandwidth limits
+RELATED PROJECTS -----------------------------------------------------
+rsyncsh
+http://rsync.samba.org/rsync-and-debian/
+rsyncable gzip patch
+rsyncsplit as alternative to real integration with gzip?
+reverse rsync over HTTP Range

 
 

-rsyncd over ssh

 
 

-  There are already some patches to do this.

 
 

-  BitKeeper uses a server whose login shell is set to bkd.  That's
-  probably a reasonable approach.
+BUGS ---------------------------------------------------------------

 
 
 
 

-FEATURES ------------------------------------------------------------
+Do not rely on having a group called "nobody"

 
 

+  http://www.linuxbase.org/spec/refspecs/LSB_1.1.0/gLSB/usernames.html

 
 

---dry-run is insufficiently dry
+  On Debian it's "nogroup"

 
 

-  Mark Santcroos points out that -n fails to list files which have
-  only metadata changes, though it probably should.  
+                      --          --

 
 

-  There may be a Debian bug about this as well.
+FEATURES ------------------------------------------------------------

 
 
 
 

-use chroot
+Use chroot only if supported

 
   If the platform doesn't support it, then don't even try.
 
 
   If the platform doesn't support it, then don't even try.
 


@@ -140,602 +90,539 @@ use chroot
     http://lists.samba.org/pipermail/rsync/2001-August/thread.html
     http://lists.samba.org/pipermail/rsync/2001-September/thread.html
 
     http://lists.samba.org/pipermail/rsync/2001-August/thread.html
     http://lists.samba.org/pipermail/rsync/2001-September/thread.html
 

+                      --          --

 
 

---files-from
-
-  Avoids traversal.  Better option than a pile of --include statements
-  for people who want to generate the file list using a find(1)
-  command or a script.

 
 

-
-supplementary groups
+Allow supplementary groups in rsyncd.conf                      2002/04/09

 
   Perhaps allow supplementary groups to be specified in rsyncd.conf;
   then make the first one the primary gid and all the rest be
   supplementary gids.
 
 
   Perhaps allow supplementary groups to be specified in rsyncd.conf;
   then make the first one the primary gid and all the rest be
   supplementary gids.
 

+                      --          --

 
 

-File list structure in memory

 
 

-  Rather than one big array, perhaps have a tree in memory mirroring
-  the directory tree.  
+Handling IPv6 on old machines

 
 

-  This might make sorting much faster!  (I'm not sure it's a big CPU
-  problem, mind you.)  
+  The KAME IPv6 patch is nice in theory but has proved a bit of a
+  nightmare in practice.  The basic idea of their patch is that rsync
+  is rewritten to use the new getaddrinfo()/getnameinfo() interface,
+  rather than gethostbyname()/gethostbyaddr() as in rsync 2.4.6.
+  Systems that don't have the new interface are handled by providing
+  our own implementation in lib/, which is selectively linked in.

 
 

-  It might also reduce memory use in storing repeated directory names
-  -- again I'm not sure this is a problem.
+  The problem with this is that it is really hard to get right on
+  platforms that have a half-working implementation, so redefining
+  these functions clashes with system headers, and leaving them out
+  breaks.  This affects at least OSF/1, RedHat 5, and Cobalt, which
+  are moderately improtant.

 
 

-Performance
+  Perhaps the simplest solution would be to have two different files
+  implementing the same interface, and choose either the new or the
+  old API.  This is probably necessary for systems that e.g. have
+  IPv6, but gethostbyaddr() can't handle it.  The Linux manpage claims
+  this is currently the case.

 
 

-  Traverse just one directory at a time.  Tridge says it's possible.
-
-  At the moment rsync reads the whole file list into memory at the
-  start, which makes us use a lot of memory and also not pipeline
-  network access as much as we could.
+  In fact, our internal sockets interface (things like
+  open_socket_out(), etc) is much narrower than the getaddrinfo()
+  interface, and so probably simpler to get right.  In addition, the
+  old code is known to work well on old machines.

 
 

+  We could drop the rather large lib/getaddrinfo files.

 
 

-Handling duplicate names
+                      --          --

 
 

-  We need to be careful of duplicate names getting into the file list.
-  See clean_flist().  This could happen if multiple arguments include
-  the same file.  Bad.

 
 

-  I think duplicates are only a problem if they're both flowing
-  through the pipeline at the same time.  For example we might have
-  updated the first occurrence after reading the checksums for the
-  second.  So possibly we just need to make sure that we don't have
-  both in the pipeline at the same time.  
-
-  Possibly if we did one directory at a time that would be sufficient.
+Other IPv6 stuff:
+  
+  Implement suggestions from http://www.kame.net/newsletter/19980604/
+  and ftp://ftp.iij.ad.jp/pub/RFC/rfc2553.txt

 
 

-  Alternatively we could pre-process the arguments to make sure no
-  duplicates will ever be inserted.  There could be some bad cases
-  when we're collapsing symlinks.
+  If a host has multiple addresses, then listen try to connect to all
+  in order until we get through.  (getaddrinfo may return multiple
+  addresses.)  This is kind of implemented already.

 
 

-  We could have a hash table.
+  Possibly also when starting as a server we may need to listen on
+  multiple passive addresses.  This might be a bit harder, because we
+  may need to select on all of them.  Hm.

 
 

-  The root of the problem is that we do not want more than one file
-  list entry referring to the same file.  At first glance there are
-  several ways this could happen: symlinks, hardlinks, and repeated
-  names on the command line.
+  Define a syntax for IPv6 literal addresses.  Since they include
+  colons, they tend to break most naming systems, including ours.
+  Based on the HTTP IPv6 syntax, I think we should use
+ 
+     rsync://[::1]/foo/bar [::1]::bar

 
 

-  If names are repeated on the command line, they may be present in
-  different forms, perhaps by traversing directory paths in different
-  ways, traversing paths including symlinks.  Also we need to allow
-  for expansion of globs by rsync.
+  which should just take a small change to the parser code.

 
 

-  At the moment, clean_flist() requires having the entire file list in
-  memory.  Duplicate names are detected just by a string comparison.
+                      --          --

 
 

-  We don't need to worry about hard links causing duplicates because
-  files are never updated in place.  Similarly for symlinks.

 
 

-  I think even if we're using a different symlink mode we don't need
-  to worry.
+Add ACL support                                                        2001/12/02

 
 

-  Unless we're really clever this will introduce a protocol
-  incompatibility, so we need to be able to accept the old format as
-  well.
+  Transfer ACLs.  Need to think of a standard representation.
+  Probably better not to even try to convert between NT and POSIX.
+  Possibly can share some code with Samba.
+  NOTE: there is a patch that implements this in the "patches" subdir.

 
 

+                      --          --

 
 

-Memory accounting

 
 

-  At exit, show how much memory was used for the file list, etc.
+Lazy directory creation

 
 

-  Also we do a wierd exponential-growth allocation in flist.c.  I'm
-  not sure this makes sense with modern mallocs.  At any rate it will
-  make us allocate a huge amount of memory for large file lists.
+  With the current common --include '*/' --exclude '*' pattern, people
+  can end up with many empty directories.  We might avoid this by
+  lazily creating such directories.

 
 

+                      --          --

 
 

-Hard-link handling

 
 

-  At the moment hardlink handling is very expensive, so it's off by
-  default.  It does not need to be so.  
+proxy authentication                                           2002/01/23

 
 

-  Since most of the solutions are rather intertwined with the file
-  list it is probably better to fix that first, although fixing
-  hardlinks is possibly simpler.
+  Allow RSYNC_PROXY to be http://user:pass@proxy.foo:3128/, and do
+  HTTP Basic Proxy-Authentication.

 
 

-  We can rule out hardlinked directories since they will probably
-  screw us up in all kinds of ways.  They simply should not be used.
+  Multiple schemes are possible, up to and including the insanity that
+  is NTLM, but Basic probably covers most cases.

 
 

-  At the moment rsync only cares about hardlinks to regular files.  I
-  guess you could also use them for sockets, devices and other beasts,
-  but I have not seen them.
+                      --          --

 
 

-  When trying to reproduce hard links, we only need to worry about
-  files that have more than one name (nlinks>1 && !S_ISDIR). 

 
 

-  The basic point of this is to discover alternate names that refer to
-  the same file.  All operations, including creating the file and
-  writing modifications to it need only to be done for the first name.
-  For all later names, we just create the link and then leave it
-  alone.
+SOCKS                                                          2002/01/23

 
 

-  If hard links are to be preserved:
+  Add --with-socks, and then perhaps a command-line option to put them
+  on or off.  This might be more reliable than LD_PRELOAD hacks.

 
 

-    Before the generator/receiver fork, the list of files is received
-    from the sender (recv_file_list), and a table for detecting hard
-    links is built.
+                      --          --

 
 

-    The generator looks for hard links within the file list and does
-    not send checksums for them, though it does send other metadata.

 
 

-    The sender sends the device number and inode with file entries, so
-    that files are uniquely identified.
+FAT support

 
 

-    The receiver goes through and creates hard links (do_hard_links)
-    after all data has been written, but before directory permissions
-    are set.
+  rsync to a FAT partition on a Unix machine doesn't work very well at
+  the moment.  I think we get errors about invalid filenames and
+  perhaps also trying to do atomic renames.

 
 

-  At the moment device and inum are sent as 4-byte integers, which
-  will probably cause problems on large filesystems.  On Linux the
-  kernel uses 64-bit ino_t's internally, and people will soon have
-  filesystems big enough to use them.  We ought to follow NFS4 in
-  using 64-bit device and inode identification, perhaps with a
-  protocol version bump.
+  I guess the code to do this is currently #ifdef'd on Windows;
+  perhaps we ought to intelligently fall back to it on Unix too.

 
 

-  Once we've seen all the names for a particular file, we no longer
-  need to think about it and we can deallocate the memory.
+                      --          --

 
 

-  We can also have the case where there are links to a file that are
-  not in the tree being transferred.  There's nothing we can do about
-  that.  Because we rename the destination into place after writing,
-  any hardlinks to the old file are always going to be orphaned.  In
-  fact that is almost necessary because otherwise we'd get really
-  confused if we were generating checksums for one name of a file and
-  modifying another.

 
 

-  At the moment the code seems to make a whole second copy of the file
-  list, which seems unnecessary.
+Allow forcing arbitrary permissions                            2002/03/12

 
 

-  We should have a test case that exercises hard links.  Since it
-  might be hard to compare ./tls output where the inodes change we
-  might need a little program to check whether several names refer to
-  the same file.
+  On 12 Mar 2002, Dave Dykstra <dwd@bell-labs.com> wrote:
+  > If we would add an option to do that functionality, I
+  > would vote for one that was more general which could mask
+  > off any set of permission bits and possibly add any set of
+  > bits.  Perhaps a chmod-like syntax if it could be
+  > implemented simply.

 
 

-IPv6
+  I think that would be good too.  For example, people uploading files
+  to a web server might like to say

 
 

-  Implement suggestions from http://www.kame.net/newsletter/19980604/
-  and ftp://ftp.iij.ad.jp/pub/RFC/rfc2553.txt
+  rsync -avzP --chmod a+rX ./ sourcefrog.net:/home/www/sourcefrog/

 
 

-  If a host has multiple addresses, then listen try to connect to all
-  in order until we get through.  (getaddrinfo may return multiple
-  addresses.)  This is kind of implemented already.
+  Ideally the patch would implement as many of the gnu chmod semantics
+  as possible.  I think the mode parser should be a separate function
+  that passes back something like (mask,set) description to the rest
+  of the program.  For bonus points there would be a test case for the
+  parser.

 
 

-  Possibly also when starting as a server we may need to listen on
-  multiple passive addresses.  This might be a bit harder, because we
-  may need to select on all of them.  Hm.
+  Possibly also --chown

 
 

-  Define a syntax for IPv6 literal addresses.  Since they include
-  colons, they tend to break most naming systems, including ours.
-  Based on the HTTP IPv6 syntax, I think we should use
- 
-     rsync://[::1]/foo/bar
-     [::1]::bar
+  (Debian #23628)

 
 

-  which should just take a small change to the parser code.
+  NOTE: there is a patch that implements this in the "patches" subdir.

 
 

+                      --          --

 
 

-Errors

 
 

-  If we hang or get SIGINT, then explain where we were up to.  Perhaps
-  have a static buffer that contains the current function name, or
-  some kind of description of what we were trying to do.  This is a
-  little easier on people than needing to run strace/truss.
+--diff                                         david.e.sewell  2002/03/15

 
 

-  "The dungeon collapses!  You are killed."  Rather than "unexpected
-  eof" give a message that is more detailed if possible and also more
-  helpful.  
+  Allow people to specify the diff command.  (Might want to use wdiff,
+  gnudiff, etc.)

 
 

-  If we get an error writing to a socket, then we should perhaps
-  continue trying to read to see if an error message comes across
-  explaining why the socket is closed.  I'm not sure if this would
-  work, but it would certainly make our messages more helpful.
+  Just diff the temporary file with the destination file, and delete
+  the tmp file rather than moving it into place.

 
 

-  What happens if a directory is missing -x attributes.  Do we lose
-  our load?  (Debian #28416)  Probably fixed now, but a test case
-  would be good.
+  Interaction with --partial.

 
 

+  Security interactions with daemon mode?

 
 

-File attributes
+                      --          --

 
 

-  Device major/minor numbers should be at least 32 bits each.  See
-  http://lists.samba.org/pipermail/rsync/2001-November/005357.html

 
 

-  Transfer ACLs.  Need to think of a standard representation.
-  Probably better not to even try to convert between NT and POSIX.
-  Possibly can share some code with Samba.
+Add daemon --no-fork option

 
 

-Empty directories
+  Very useful for debugging.  Also good when running under a
+  daemon-monitoring process that tries to restart the service when the
+  parent exits.

 
 

-  With the current common --include '*/' --exclude '*' pattern, people
-  can end up with many empty directories.  We might avoid this by
-  lazily creating such directories.
+                      --          --

 
 
 
 

-zlib
+Create more granular verbosity                         jw      2003/05/15

 
 

-  Perhaps don't use our own zlib.  
+  Control output with the --report option.

 
 

-  Advantages:
-   
-    - will automatically be up to date with bugfixes in zlib
+  The option takes as a single argument (no whitespace) a
+  comma delimited lists of keywords.

 
 

-    - can leave it out for small rsync on e.g. recovery disks
+  This would separate debugging from "logging" as well as
+  fine grained selection of statistical reporting and what
+  actions are logged.

 
 

-    - can use a shared library
+  http://lists.samba.org/archive/rsync/2003-May/006059.html

 
 

-    - avoids people breaking rsync by trying to do this themselves and
-      messing up
+                      --          --

 
 

-  Should we ship zlib for systems that don't have it, or require
-  people to install it separately?
+DOCUMENTATION --------------------------------------------------------

 
 

-  Apparently this will make us incompatible with versions of rsync
-  that use the patched version of rsync.  Probably the simplest way to
-  do this is to just disable gzip (with a warning) when talking to old
-  versions.

 
 

+Keep list of open issues and todos on the web site

 
 

-logging
+                      --          --

 
 

-  Perhaps flush stdout after each filename, so that people trying to
-  monitor progress in a log file can do so more easily.  See
-  http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=48108

 
 

-  At the connections that just get a list of modules are not logged,
-  but they should be.
+Perhaps redo manual as SGML

 
 

-  If a child of the rsync daemon dies with a signal, we should notice
-  that when we reap it and log a message.
+  The man page is getting rather large, and there is more information
+  that ought to be added.

 
 

-  Keep stderr and stdout properly separated (Debian #23626)
+  TexInfo source is probably a dying format.

 
 

-  After we get the @RSYNCD greeting from the server, we know it's
-  version but we have not yet sent the command line, so we could just
-  remove the -z option if the server is too old.  
+  Linuxdoc looks like the most likely contender.  I know DocBook is
+  favoured by some people, but it's so bloody verbose, even with emacs
+  support.

 
 

-  For ssh invocation it's not so simple, because we actually use the
-  command line to start the remote process.  However, we only actually
-  do compression in token.c, and we could therefore once we discover
-  the remote version emit an error if it's too old.  I'm not sure if
-  that's a good tradeoff or not.
+                      --          --

 
 

+LOGGING --------------------------------------------------------------

 
 

-rsyncd over ssh

 
 

-  There are already some patches to do this.
+Memory accounting

 
 

-proxy authentication
+  At exit, show how much memory was used for the file list, etc.

 
 

-  Allow RSYNC_PROXY to be http://user:pass@proxy.foo:3128/, and do
-  HTTP Basic Proxy-Authentication.  
+  Also we do a wierd exponential-growth allocation in flist.c.  I'm
+  not sure this makes sense with modern mallocs.  At any rate it will
+  make us allocate a huge amount of memory for large file lists.

 
 

-  Multiple schemes are possible, up to and including the insanity that
-  is NTLM, but Basic probably covers most cases.
+                      --          --

 
 

-SOCKS

 
 

-  Add --with-socks, and then perhaps a command-line option to put them
-  on or off.  This might be more reliable than LD_PRELOAD hacks.
+Improve error messages

 
 

-FAT support
+  If we hang or get SIGINT, then explain where we were up to.  Perhaps
+  have a static buffer that contains the current function name, or
+  some kind of description of what we were trying to do.  This is a
+  little easier on people than needing to run strace/truss.

 
 

-  rsync to a FAT partition on a Unix machine doesn't work very well
-  at the moment.  I think we get errors about invalid filenames and 
-  perhaps also trying to do atomic renames.
+  "The dungeon collapses!  You are killed."  Rather than "unexpected
+  eof" give a message that is more detailed if possible and also more
+  helpful.

 
 

-  I guess the code to do this is currently #ifdef'd on Windows; perhaps
-  we ought to intelligently fall back to it on Unix too.
+  If we get an error writing to a socket, then we should perhaps
+  continue trying to read to see if an error message comes across
+  explaining why the socket is closed.  I'm not sure if this would
+  work, but it would certainly make our messages more helpful.

 
 

+  What happens if a directory is missing -x attributes.  Do we lose
+  our load?  (Debian #28416) Probably fixed now, but a test case would
+  be good.

 
 

-Better statistics:
+  When running as a daemon, some errors should both be returned to the
+  user and logged.  This will make interacting with a daemon less
+  cryptic.

 
 

-  <Rasmus> mbp: hey, how about an rsync option that just gives you the
-  summary without the list of files?  And perhaps gives more
-  information like the number of new files, number of changed,
-  deleted, etc. ?
-  <mbp> Rasmus: nice idea
-  <mbp> there is --stats
-  <mbp> but at the moment it's very tridge-oriented
-  <mbp> rather than user-friendly
-  <mbp> it would be nice to improve it
-  <mbp> that would also work well with --dryrun
+                      --          --

 
 

-TDB:

 
 

-  Rather than storing the file list in memory, store it in a TDB.
+Better statistics:                                     Rasmus  2002/03/08

 
 

-  This *might* make memory usage lower while building the file list.
+  <Rasmus>
+      hey, how about an rsync option that just gives you the
+      summary without the list of files?  And perhaps gives
+      more information like the number of new files, number
+      of changed, deleted, etc. ?

 
 

-  Hashtable lookup will mean files are not transmitted in order,
-  though... hm.
+  <mbp>
+      nice idea there is --stats but at the moment it's very
+      tridge-oriented rather than user-friendly it would be
+      nice to improve it that would also work well with
+      --dryrun

 
 

-  This would neatly eliminate one of the major post-fork shared data
-  structures.
+                      --          --

 
 
 
 

-chmod:
+Perhaps flush stdout like syslog

 
 

-  On 12 Mar 2002, Dave Dykstra <dwd@bell-labs.com> wrote:
-  > If we would add an option to do that functionality, I would vote for one
-  > that was more general which could mask off any set of permission bits and
-  > possibly add any set of bits.  Perhaps a chmod-like syntax if it could be
-  > implemented simply.
-
-  I think that would be good too.  For example, people uploading files   
-  to a web server might like to say
+  Perhaps flush stdout after each filename, so that people trying to
+  monitor progress in a log file can do so more easily.  See
+  http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=48108

 
 

-  rsync -avzP --chmod a+rX ./ sourcefrog.net:/home/www/sourcefrog/
+                      --          --

 
 

-  Ideally the patch would implement as many of the gnu chmod semantics
-  as possible.  I think the mode parser should be a separate function
-  that passes back something like (mask,set) description to the rest of
-  the program.  For bonus points there would be a test case for the  
-  parser.

 
 

-  (Debian #23628)
+Log deamon sessions that just list modules

 
 

+  At the connections that just get a list of modules are not logged,
+  but they should be.

 
 

---diff
+                      --          --

 
 

-  Allow people to specify the diff command.  (Might want to use wdiff,
-  gnudiff, etc.)

 
 

-  Just diff the temporary file with the destination file, and delete
-  the tmp file rather than moving it into place.
+Log child death on signal

 
 

-  Interaction with --partial.
+  If a child of the rsync daemon dies with a signal, we should notice
+  that when we reap it and log a message.

 
 

-  Security interactions with daemon mode?
+                      --          --

 
 

-  (Suggestion from david.e.sewell)

 
 

+Log errors with function that reports process of origin

 
 

-Incorrect timestamps (Debian #100295)
+  Use a separate function for reporting errors; prefix it with
+  "rsync:" or "rsync(remote)", or perhaps even "rsync(local
+  generator): ".

 
 

-  A bit hard to believe, but apparently it happens.
+                      --          --

 
 
 
 

-Check "refuse options works"
+verbose output                                 David Stein     2001/12/20
+  
+  At end of transfer, show how many files were or were not transferred
+  correctly.

 
 

-  We need a test case for this...
+                      --          --

 
 

-  Was this broken when we changed to popt?

 
 

+internationalization

 
 

-PERFORMANCE ----------------------------------------------------------
+  Change to using gettext().  Probably need to ship this for platforms
+  that don't have it.

 
 

-MD4 file_sum
+  Solicit translations.

 
 

-  If we're doing a local transfer, or using -W, then perhaps don't
-  send the file checksum.  If we're doing a local transfer, then
-  calculating MD4 checksums uses 90% of CPU and is unlikely to be
-  useful.
+  Does anyone care?  Before we bother modifying the code, we ought to
+  get the manual translated first, because that's possibly more useful
+  and at any rate demonstrates desire.

 
 

-  Indeed for transfers over zlib or ssh we can also rely on the
-  transport to have quite strong protection against corruption.
+                      --          --

 
 

-  Perhaps we should have an option to disable this, analogous to
-  --whole-file, although it would default to disabled.  The file
-  checksum takes up a definite space in the protocol -- we can either
-  set it to 0, or perhaps just leave it out.
+DEVELOPMENT --------------------------------------------------------

 
 

-MD4
+Handling duplicate names

 
 

-  Perhaps borrow an assembler MD4 from someone?
+  Some folks would like rsync to be deterministic in how it handles
+  duplicate names that come from mering multiple source directories
+  into a single destination directory; e.g. the last name wins.  We
+  could do this by switching our sort algorithm to one that will
+  guarantee that the names won't be reordered.  Alternately, we could
+  assign an ever-increasing number to each item as we insert it into
+  the list and then make sure that we leave the largest number when
+  cleaning the file list (see clean_flist()).  Another solution would
+  be to add a hash table, and thus never put any duplicate names into
+  the file list (and bump the protocol to handle this).

 
 

-  Make sure we call MD4 with properly-sized blocks whenever possible
-  to avoid copying into the residue region?
+                      --          --

 
 

-String area code

 
 

-  Test whether this is actually faster than just using malloc().  If
-  it's not (anymore), throw it out.
-         
+Use generic zlib                                               2002/02/25

 
 

-PLATFORMS ------------------------------------------------------------
+  Perhaps don't use our own zlib.

 
 

-Win32
+  Advantages:
+   
+    - will automatically be up to date with bugfixes in zlib

 
 

-  Don't detach, because this messes up --srvany.
+    - can leave it out for small rsync on e.g. recovery disks

 
 

-  http://sources.redhat.com/ml/cygwin/2001-08/msg00234.html
+    - can use a shared library

 
 

-  According to "Effective TCP/IP Programming" (??) close() on a socket
-  has incorrect behaviour on Windows -- it sends a RST packet to the
-  other side, which gives a "connection reset by peer" error.  On that
-  platform we should probably do shutdown() instead.  However, on Unix
-  we are correct to call close(), because shutdown() discards
-  untransmitted data.
+    - avoids people breaking rsync by trying to do this themselves and
+      messing up

 
 

+  Should we ship zlib for systems that don't have it, or require
+  people to install it separately?

 
 

-DEVELOPMENT ----------------------------------------------------------
+  Apparently this will make us incompatible with versions of rsync
+  that use the patched version of rsync.  Probably the simplest way to
+  do this is to just disable gzip (with a warning) when talking to old
+  versions.

 
 

-Splint
+                      --          --

 
 

-  Build rsync with SPLINT to try to find security holes.  Add
-  annotations as necessary.  Keep track of the number of warnings
-  found initially, and see how many of them are real bugs, or real
-  security bugs.  Knowing the percentage of likely hits would be
-  really interesting for other projects.

 
 

-Torture test
+TDB:                                                           2002/03/12

 
 

-  Something that just keeps running rsync continuously over a data set
-  likely to generate problems.
+  Rather than storing the file list in memory, store it in a TDB.

 
 

-Cross-testing
+  This *might* make memory usage lower while building the file list.

 
 

-  Run current rsync versions against significant past releases.
+  Hashtable lookup will mean files are not transmitted in order,
+  though... hm.

 
 

-Memory debugger
+  This would neatly eliminate one of the major post-fork shared data
+  structures.

 
 

-  jra recommends Valgrind:
+                      --          --

 
 

-    http://devel-home.kde.org/~sewardj/

 
 

-Release script
-  
-  Update spec files
+Splint                                                         2002/03/12

 
 

-  Build tar file; upload
+  Build rsync with SPLINT to try to find security holes.  Add
+  annotations as necessary.  Keep track of the number of warnings
+  found initially, and see how many of them are real bugs, or real
+  security bugs.  Knowing the percentage of likely hits would be
+  really interesting for other projects.

 
 

-  Send announcement to mailing list and c.o.l.a.
-  
-  Make freshmeat announcement
+                      --          --

 
 

-  Update web site
+PERFORMANCE ----------------------------------------------------------

 
 

+File list structure in memory

 
 

+  Rather than one big array, perhaps have a tree in memory mirroring
+  the directory tree.

 
 

-TESTING --------------------------------------------------------------
+  This might make sorting much faster!  (I'm not sure it's a big CPU
+  problem, mind you.)

 
 

-Cross-test versions
+  It might also reduce memory use in storing repeated directory names
+  -- again I'm not sure this is a problem.

 
 

-  Part of the regression suite should be making sure that we don't
-  break backwards compatibility: old clients vs new servers and so
-  on.  Ideally we would test both up and down from the current release
-  to all old versions.
+                      --          --

 
 

-  We might need to omit broken old versions, or versions in which
-  particular functionality is broken

 
 

-  It might be sufficient to test downloads from well-known public
-  rsync servers running different versions of rsync.  This will give
-  some testing and also be the most common case for having different
-  versions and not being able to upgrade.
+Traverse just one directory at a time

 
 

+  Traverse just one directory at a time.  Tridge says it's possible.

 
 

-Test on kernel source
+  At the moment rsync reads the whole file list into memory at the
+  start, which makes us use a lot of memory and also not pipeline
+  network access as much as we could.

 
 

-  Download all versions of kernel; unpack, sync between them.  Also
-  sync between uncompressed tarballs.  Compare directories after
-  transfer.
+                      --          --

 
 

-  Use local mode; ssh; daemon; --whole-file and --no-whole-file.

 
 

-  Use awk to pull out the 'speedup' number for each transfer.  Make
-  sure it is >= x.
+Allow skipping MD4 file_sum                                    2002/04/08

 
 

+  If we're doing a local transfer, or using -W, then perhaps don't
+  send the file checksum.  If we're doing a local transfer, then
+  calculating MD4 checksums uses 90% of CPU and is unlikely to be
+  useful.

 
 

-Test large files
+  We should not allow it to be disabled separately from -W, though
+  as it is the only thing that lets us know when the rsync algorithm
+  got out of sync and messed the file up (i.e. if the basis file
+  changed between checksum generation and reception).

 
 

-  Sparse and non-sparse
+                      --          --

 
 

-Mutator program

 
 

-  Insert bytes, delete bytes, swap blocks, ...
+Accelerate MD4

 
 

-configure option to enable dangerous tests
+  Perhaps borrow an assembler MD4 from someone?

 
 

-If tests are skipped, say why.
+  Make sure we call MD4 with properly-sized blocks whenever possible
+  to avoid copying into the residue region?

 
 

-Test daemon feature to disallow particular options.
+                      --          --

 
 

-Pipe program that makes slow/jerky connections.
+TESTING --------------------------------------------------------------

 
 

-Versions of read() and write() that corrupt the stream, or abruptly fail
+Torture test

 
 

-Separate makefile target to run rough tests -- or perhaps just run
-them every time?
+  Something that just keeps running rsync continuously over a data set
+  likely to generate problems.

 
 

+                      --          --

 
 

-DOCUMENTATION --------------------------------------------------------

 
 

-Update README
+Cross-test versions                                            2001/08/22

 
 

-Keep list of open issues and todos on the web site
+  Part of the regression suite should be making sure that we
+  don't break backwards compatibility: old clients vs new
+  servers and so on.  Ideally we would test both up and down
+  from the current release to all old versions.

 
 

-Update web site from CVS
+  Run current rsync versions against significant past releases.

 
 

+  We might need to omit broken old versions, or versions in which
+  particular functionality is broken

 
 

-Perhaps redo manual as SGML
+  It might be sufficient to test downloads from well-known public
+  rsync servers running different versions of rsync.  This will give
+  some testing and also be the most common case for having different
+  versions and not being able to upgrade.

 
 

-  The man page is getting rather large, and there is more information
-  that ought to be added.
+  The new --protocol option may help in this.

 
 

-  TexInfo source is probably a dying format.
+                      --          --

 
 

-  Linuxdoc looks like the most likely contender.  I know DocBook is
-  favoured by some people, but it's so bloody verbose, even with emacs
-  support.

 
 

+Test on kernel source

 
 

-BUILD FARM -----------------------------------------------------------
+  Download all versions of kernel; unpack, sync between them.  Also
+  sync between uncompressed tarballs.  Compare directories after
+  transfer.

 
 

-Add machines
+  Use local mode; ssh; daemon; --whole-file and --no-whole-file.

 
 

-  AMDAHL UTS (Dave Dykstra)
+  Use awk to pull out the 'speedup' number for each transfer.  Make
+  sure it is >= x.

 
 

-  Cygwin (on different versions of Win32?)
+                      --          --

 
 

-  HP-UX variants (via HP?)

 
 

-  SCO
+Test large files

 
 

+  Sparse and non-sparse

 
 

-LOGGING --------------------------------------------------------------
+                      --          --

 
 

-  Perhaps flush stdout after each filename, so that people trying to
-  monitor progress in a log file can do so more easily.  See
-  http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=48108

 
 

-  At the connections that just get a list of modules are not logged,
-  but they should be.
+Create mutator program for testing

 
 

-  If a child of the rsync daemon dies with a signal, we should notice
-  that when we reap it and log a message.
+  Insert bytes, delete bytes, swap blocks, ...

 
 

-  Keep stderr and stdout properly separated (Debian #23626)
+                      --          --

 
 

-  Use a separate function for reporting errors; prefix it with
-  "rsync:" or "rsync(remote)", or perhaps even "rsync(local
-  generator): ".

 
 

-verbose output
-  
-  Indicate whether files are new, updated, or deleted
+Create configure option to enable dangerous tests

 
 

-  At end of transfer, show how many files were or were not transferred
-  correctly.
+                      --          --

 
 

--vv

 
 

-  Explain *why* every file is transferred or not (e.g. "local mtime
-  123123 newer than 1283198")
+If tests are skipped, say why.

 
 

+                      --          --

 
 

-debugging of daemon

 
 

-  Add an rsyncd.conf parameter to turn on debugging on the server.
+Test daemon feature to disallow particular options.

 
 

+                      --          --

 
 
 
 

-NICE -----------------------------------------------------------------
+Create pipe program for testing

 
 

---no-detach and --no-fork options
+  Create pipe program that makes slow/jerky connections for
+  testing Versions of read() and write() that corrupt the
+  stream, or abruptly fail

 
 

-  Very useful for debugging.  Also good when running under a
-  daemon-monitoring process that tries to restart the service when the
-  parent exits.
+                      --          --

 
 

-hang/timeout friendliness

 
 

-internationalization
+Create test makefile target for some tests

 
 

-  Change to using gettext().  Probably need to ship this for platforms
-  that don't have it.  
+  Separate makefile target to run rough tests -- or perhaps
+  just run them every time?

 
 

-  Solicit translations.
+                      --          --

 
 

-  Does anyone care?  Before we bother modifying the code, we ought to
-  get the manual translated first, because that's possibly more useful
-  and at any rate demonstrates desire.
+RELATED PROJECTS -----------------------------------------------------

 
 

-rsyncsh 
+rsyncsh

 
    Write a small emulation of interactive ftp as a Pythonn program
    that calls rsync.  Commands such as "cd", "ls", "ls *.c" etc map
 
    Write a small emulation of interactive ftp as a Pythonn program
    that calls rsync.  Commands such as "cd", "ls", "ls *.c" etc map


@@ -743,20 +630,37 @@ rsyncsh
    current host, directory and so on.  We can probably even do
    completion of remote filenames.
 
    current host, directory and so on.  We can probably even do
    completion of remote filenames.
 

+                      --          --

 
 

-RELATED PROJECTS -----------------------------------------------------

 
 http://rsync.samba.org/rsync-and-debian/
 
 
 http://rsync.samba.org/rsync-and-debian/
 

+
+                      --          --
+
+

 rsyncable gzip patch
 
   Exhaustive, tortuous testing
 
   Cleanups?
 
 rsyncable gzip patch
 
   Exhaustive, tortuous testing
 
   Cleanups?
 

+                      --          --
+
+

 rsyncsplit as alternative to real integration with gzip?
 
 rsyncsplit as alternative to real integration with gzip?
 

+                      --          --
+
+

 reverse rsync over HTTP Range
 
   Goswin Brederlow suggested this on Debian; I think tridge and I
   talked about it previous in relation to rproxy.
 reverse rsync over HTTP Range
 
   Goswin Brederlow suggested this on Debian; I think tridge and I
   talked about it previous in relation to rproxy.

+
+  Addendum:  It looks like someone is working on a version of this:
+
+    http://zsync.moria.org.uk/
+
+                      --          --
+