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Unison Support?

adinb
Aspirant

Unison Support?

I'd like to throw support for Unison (client & server) into the hat. It's cross platform, similar to rsync, but easier to use, and has plenty of F/OSS implementations. Unison might really make mirroring a lot easier with the readynas.

-adin
Message 1 of 24
beq
Aspirant
Aspirant

Re: Unison Support?

Thanks for the suggestion, I really like what I've read about it.

Uses the rsync block-level diff algorithm, but also supports 2-way sync directly, and supposedly can even merge changes at both ends into the same file!

And native binary available for Windows, so no need for Cygwin...

+1 !

Resources:

http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/

http://blog.kowalczyk.info/articles/usingUnison.html

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7712
Message 2 of 24
adinb
Aspirant

Re: Unison Support?

Yeah, the only downside is that it appears that the developers have decided to move on to other projects.

Hopefully someone motivated in the F/OSS community will pick it up, because it has some real potential.

-a
Message 3 of 24
dca2
Aspirant

Re: Unison Support?

I've started to use Unison to synchronize some directories and it works amazingly well.
I think it would fit perfectly well to the ReadyNas as it would allow one to synchronize many machines with one master (the nas), which is the recommended way to synchronize more than 2 hosts.

+1
Message 4 of 24
toreolsen
Aspirant

Native Windows client makes Unison Very attactive.

An extra vote for Unison. It is a brilliant program for two way sync, uses the rsync algoritm to save bandwidth use and is cross platform. I would get a lot more use out of my ReadyNAS NV if it supported Unison.
Message 5 of 24
bthom
Aspirant

Re: Unison Support?

Hello,

I also strongly encourage this idea. As it stands now, to do 2-way synchronization I have to use one of my Macs to provide the interface (it goes thru the NAS) b/c the NAS can't provide unison services directly.

Folks at Infrant ... is there an effort to incorporate a unison server into the Nas units? If so, what's the status on that?

Thx,

--b
Message 6 of 24
yoh-dah
Guide

Re: Unison Support?

With RAIDiator 4 and SSH access, you can implement Unison service on the ReadyNAS.
Message 7 of 24
bthom
Aspirant

Re: Unison Support?

Can you please provide more detailed information on how one would begin to go about doing this?

Do I need to compile things on the Nas to make this work? I get the impression that the Nas CPU is too slow to do much of that kind of thing (e.g. http://....).

Thanks a bunch,

--b
Message 8 of 24
yoh-dah
Guide

Re: Unison Support?

Check out the ReadyNAS Beta Forum.
Message 9 of 24
bindertwine
Aspirant

Unison development

I checked with one of the Unison developers...although they may be working on other projects, they also use Unison on a daily basis, and things continue to get fixed. It's a good solution...if only I could get it to work with the ReadyNAS.

I tried it by mounting the ReadyNAS and running Unison in local mode, but since I'm running Mac OS X, I found:

1) Can't use SMB/CIFS, because resource forks and extended attributes are not supported

2) Can't use NFS, same reason

3) Can't use AFP, because there is a bug in the AFP implementation on the ReadyNAS that doesn't set permissions correctly in all cases.

The only way to use Unison right now from Mac OS X with a ReadyNAS is to set Unison to ignore permissions, and to run it locally with the ReadyNAS mounted as a network disk. Of course, if permissions matter to you, this could be an issue.
Message 10 of 24
magi1
Aspirant

Re: Unison Support?

Running it in local mode doesn't give you the performance benefit of the rsync/unison protocols though; it basically misses the whole point. Sure, for many of us, network bandwidth between our computers and the ReadyNAS isn't at a premium (so conserving that doesn't matter), but I'll bet that the ReadyNAS can checksum files locally faster than it can stream them over any of its file sharing protocols.

So back to getting Unison running on the ReadyNAS: very cool that Raidiator 4 is now (beta) available and allows us to run our own services. Anyone have info on toolchain/compilers for compiling Unison (or whatever) for the ReadyNAS?
Message 11 of 24
bindertwine
Aspirant

unison under 4.0...

Well, if dpkg is implemented on the readynas (I don't know), you can probably install it easily enough. After radiator 4 is released, I'd be willing to try it myself.

Although it isn't true that running unison locally misses the whole point - after all, you are still achieving file synchronization. It's just a whole lot slower than it ought to be. But better than nothing.
Message 12 of 24
bhoar
Aspirant

Re: Unison Support?

magi wrote:
I'll bet that the ReadyNAS can checksum files locally faster than it can stream them over any of its file sharing protocols.


I wouldn't take that bet.

-brendan
Message 13 of 24
magi1
Aspirant

Re: Unison Support?

I wouldn't take that bet.


Hey Brendan. Ever since you wrote that, I've been wondering if you're right... thinking you probably were, but I wanted to know for sure. So I had a mental note to actually test it, once RAIDiator 4 shipped.

I just finally updated to RAIDiator 4, and (with a not-too-carefully tuned setup, for example I'm using the normal ethernet 1500-byte MTU, not jumbo frames), I get around 25MB/sec reads. Running md5sum locally, I was able to checksum a 700MB file in 27 seconds. Running md5sum against the same file locally on the NAS, it took 67 seconds (barely 10 MB/sec).

So you're right, and I lost the bet: the ReadyNAS can drop packets on the wire a lot faster than it can checksum them with md5sum.

I don't know exactly how rsync computes checksums and whether it's more or less CPU intensive than md5, but in the spirit of things, you win and that makes running rsync/unison on the NAS a lot less attractive, assuming a fast network (if you were running across a slow link, then of course the link becomes the bottleneck instead of the ReadyNAS's CPU and the tables may turn).
Message 14 of 24
Ichbinich
Aspirant

Re: Unison Support?

Is there anything new on that issue?

I would like to use unison to sync between my computer and my NAS. Is this possible right now? And how can I install unison on the NAS?
Message 15 of 24
super_poussin
Virtuoso

Re: Unison Support?

unison can be compiled for readynas but is not really a good soft because soemtimes it goes silly and you must restart the whole sync
Message 16 of 24
greymont1
Aspirant

Re: Unison Support?

This would also be of great help to me!

If Netgear would add unison support it would be very valuable.
Message 17 of 24
tknas
Aspirant

Re: Unison Support?

+1

Definitely very useful! Would be perfect for offsite backups.
Message 18 of 24
pmyteh
Aspirant

Re: Unison Support?

Just posting the solution in case anyone else finds this thread:


  • Download and install the EnableRootSSH and APT add-ons from http://www.readynas.com/?page_id=617

  • Log in as root using ssh
    apt-get update ; apt-get install unison


And you're done.

HTH,
Tom
Message 19 of 24
Zoomink
Aspirant

Re: Unison Support?

Hi, this is my first post. I just bought two ReadyNAS NV+ V2 (waiting for HDDs to arrive however..) in order to be able to work at two different places, but sharing the same data. I thought that Replicate would achieve that, but I realized that is more like backing up data remotely. And then I stumbled upon this thread...

Will I be able to use unison on my ARM devices? Has anyone tried it, and were you successful?

I did find a good tutorial of how to do it, if it is possible: http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/unison-file-synchronizer-tool/

Kind regards,
Andreas
Message 20 of 24
mh5bl
Aspirant

Re: Unison Support?

Has anyone got this to work on any of the readynas units?
I am looking at 2 way directional sync of NAS boxes in London and Manchester. There are only 2 user at each end.
Message 21 of 24
msmadilee
Aspirant

Re: Unison Support?

Picking up an ancient thread, i got unison working on my Readynas Duo V2 (arm). Maybe others are still interested?

 

The best method seems to be as others have posted, to use root SSH access to the ReadyNas:

1) Download the RootSsh add-on for arm (or i assume any other platform you wish - see here: https://www.readynas.com/?cat=36 )

       For arm: http://www.readynas.com/download/addons/arm/5.3/EnableRootSSH_1.0-arm.bin

            a. Save the file to your local machine

            b. In readynas Dashboard go to Add ons tab, click the +(Add) icon, browse to the file you saved, and press upload. It may indicate you need to restart the Readynas. Do so.

2) Now you should be able to ssh as root to the Readynas from your local machine

         in Terminal, type 

ssh root@ip.of.your.readynas

         You will be prompted for the password: use the SAME password you use to login to your ReadyNas dashboard. You should get to a shell prompt

3) in the ssh prompt, Download the precompiled binary for Unison as found here: http://alan.petitepomme.net/unison/

       For arm: use the 'For Arm, compiled under Debian Squeeze' version - http://alan.petitepomme.net/unison/assets/unison-2.40.63-armel.zip

           in Terminal, type 

 

wget http://alan.petitepomme.net/unison/assets/unison-2.40.63-armel.zip

      Tthe file will be downloaded into the library (home) of the ROOT user

4) Unzip the file you just downloaded 

unzip unison-2.40.63.armel.zip

    (Or whichever version you downloaded)

 

5)  Make sure that the extrated file is executable 

chmod +x unison-2.40.63.armel

 

6) Now you should be able to test unison in a non-standard way by typing 

./unison-2.40.63.armel -version

 

       If you get a version number, its working. 

7) This way of starting unison will not work well with the Unison client on your local machine, so lets fix that: 

cp unison-2.40.63.armel /user/local/bin/unison

 

       This command copies the file you unzipped to the local/bin directory using the name unison. Now you should be able to use unison by typing 

unison -version

 

        If that works, SUCCESS!

 

Now set up your unison client machine using the gui, or learn command options to pull from the Readynas. You can fully use Unison at this point. 

   REMEMBER:

            i. The readynas share will be at ssh://root@ip.your.readynas//full_path_to_your_share/

    NOTE: there is a // after the ip address to indicate a full path name to your share. If the share is created in the home directory for ROOT user, input only one slash /

 

 

 

 

Message 22 of 24
HansBKK
Aspirant

Re: Unison Support?

 
Message 23 of 24
HansBKK
Aspirant

Re: Unison Support?

yes Unison really is the bees' knees for keeping multiple hosts in sync, been using it 15+ years now on many platforms, it has been solid as a rock. I'm excited to implement my new RN (total noob here) as a centralized always-on Unison server for all my clients - hub and spoke topology is really the way to go to minimize replication conflicts!

But suspect the reference to deb Squeeze above - the forum doesn't display the post's year? - won't apply to OS6. My 204 is now on on 6.5.0, I'm ASSuming OS6 is based off Wheezy, but any specific suggestions as to the correct binary to use would be most appreciated.
Message 24 of 24
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