On Thu, May 23, 2002 at 04:03:56PM -0400, David Bolen wrote: > Matthias Munnich [[EMAIL PROTECTED]] writes: > > > No! Only the sender side has to compress the data. The comparison > > could be done in the compressed data format. With the -z option > > the sender compresses the data anyway. The checksum test should > > be faster for the smaller compressed pieces. > > Except that you'll probably end up retransmitting the whole thing due > to the change in compressed output. Since a compression function is > essentially a data randomizer (the better the compression the better > the randomization of the output), tiny changes in input can result in > huge changes in output. That's the traditional problem of trying to > use an algorithm like rsync's with compressed file formats. > > You really need to apply the rsync algorithm to the uncompressed files > if you hope to gain any real efficiencies in terms of reduction of > traffic transmitted.
There is a patch available to gzip to add an option --rsyncable that's supposed to make it work better with rsync. It's been put into the "patches" directory for the next release of rsync, or you can get it at http://rsync.samba.org/ftp/unpacked/rsync/patches/gzip-rsyncable.diff - Dave Dykstra -- To unsubscribe or change options: http://lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/rsync Before posting, read: http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html