birsync

Bash Inotify Rsync = birsync!

birsync uses Linux's inotify facility to detect file and folder changes in a watched directory. When a change is detected, birsync spawns an rsync process to sync those changes to a desired server, respecting your bandwidth, and never running more than one instance of rsync at a time.

birsync should run on most Linux platforms, including embedded devices. As long as you can get inotifywait (part of inotify-tools) on your platform (ie. ipkg, optware), it should work.

Tested on QNAP NAS to sync an FTP root securely to a cloud server, since FTP on the open Internet is bad.

Features

• watches for changes in files and directories
• recursively adds directories created in watched directories
• ensures only one rsync runs at a time
• bandwidth limiting (an rsync feature)

Goals

• Embedded device compatibility
• Bash 3/4 compatible
• minimal subshells spawned (this is costly)
• logfile management

Usage

1. change variables in script according to your needs, particularly watcheddir= and rsyncdest=.

2. Set up SSH pubkey auth (passwordless) between your client and the destination

3. run it!

   $ ./birsync

Troubleshooting

1. check birsync-error.log, birsync-sync.log and birsync-changes.log for clues
2. make sure lockfile is baleeted if rsync really is not running