Hi Linux experts,
For the good and worst, I'm now supporting (since yesterday), a non-ashell, new customer that has a Linux fileserver (my first customer in Brazil ).
I'm in the process of diagnose their systems, divided in two offices where, in one of them they have the CentOS fileserver and, on the other an Windows Server.
I want to have some of their folders synchronized between the two servers, via internet.
Does anyone have this installed and recommend some solution?
I've always heard that, in Linux, everything is open and free but, it will be ok to pay for some, more, reliable solution.
I've been reading about this and two names came up unison and rsync.
What I would like to have is something similar to DFS Replication in Windows, if this helps.

A possible solution would be to have some service like Dropbox or similar, which will guarantee two things, Cloud backup and multiple site replication so, if anyone is using this kind of approach, I'll be happy to know about that experience.

In fact, Backup is the other solution I'm searching for so, if you have any suggestion on this one, I would appreciate.

PS: Microsabio guys, apologize for using your BBS for other purposes; anyway, maybe in the future, this customer can become an A-Shell customer, who knows


Thanks in advance

rsync is great, but it's one-way. From the Linux Server to Window or vice-versa. Setting up the Window's server to be the receiving end is more complicated, and you should look at cygwin. Rsync will work over ssh to secure the data transfer, and you can use ssh keys to use cron jobs without a password. You might also look into incrond for directory monitoring to run rsync commands in more real-time.

I'd suggest BitTorrent Sync for actually multi-machine synchronization. I don't like the idea of putting data on dropbox servers where it's not encrypted. BitTorrent Sync is just your system to your system. It's quite efficient. It also offers a one-way sync option if that's what's required, but that could be mixed in with other full sync machines.

For backup, I'd suggest the following

Excellent information Stephen, many thanks.