Unison
About
Unison is a file-synchronization tool for Unix and Windows. It allows two replicas of a collection of files and directories to be stored on different hosts (or different disks on the same host), modified separately, and then brought up to date by propagating the changes in each replica to the other. Further informaiton on Unison can be obtained by visiting it's [http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/ website].
Installation
In order to use Unison with Ubuntu and Microsoft Windows, you will need to have Samba installed and setup. For instructions on setting up Samba in Ubuntu, visit the SettingUpSamba wiki page. Unison can be installed via the repositories utilizing either Synaptic, Adept, or by Aptitude. The following is a simple command to install it via the terminal.
# sudo apt-get install unison
Post Installation / Configuration
After installation open up Unison. Unison can be opened via the menus, or by typing unison at the command line or via run.
The following is how simple music syncronization between two PC's is setup:
- On the PC with Unison installed, create a samba share of the music drive from the remote PC.
- Then enter the following command:
# unison /location_of_local_directory /location_of_samba_directory
Once this command is entered, depending on the size of the directories and the amount of files, a good amount of time may be needed.
Unison can be setup to run on a schedule. This can be done by utilizing cron jobs. Further information regarding cron jobs can be found at the CronHowto wiki page.