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annotate silvermirror-whitepaper.txt @ 14:5f95af14b51c

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author Jeff Hammel <jhammel@mozilla.com>
date Sun, 24 Mar 2013 12:46:35 -0700
parents 584a847d2491
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1 = SilverMirror Whitepaper =
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3 It is necessary to maintain parallel directory structures of various
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4 resources across an arbitrary number of computers. The traditional
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5 approach is the central server model, where files live in one
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6 canonical location and the network is used to give access to the data.
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7 However, this model has deficiencies, chiefly among them that if the
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8 server goes down or must be moved a considerable amount of effort must
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9 be extended to set up a new central server.
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11 Distributed version control, often of nominal use (in the case where a
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12 canonical trunk exists) is ideally suited to provide mirroring of
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13 desired resources across computers.
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15 == Implementation ==
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17 A front end to a DVCS or other - unison is completed,
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18 mercurial is up next -
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19 will be written to keep resources in sync across an arbitrary number
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20 of computers. The front end, called SilverMirror, may be used to push
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21 or pull changes to resources. Optionally, a daemon will monitor
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22 changes to resources and push or pull changes at desired intervals.
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24 The use should be as natural as possible and require no interaction
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25 for everday tasks. A resource consists of a directory and all
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26 subdirectories and their contents. Once a resource is denoted as
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27 versioned, any change to the resource's directory structure should be
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28 mirrored across machines without user intervention. Files matching a
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29 pattern may be ignored, either globally or on a per resource basis,
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30 for the purpose of versioning.
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32 == Configuration ==
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34 SilverMirror is configured via an INI file containing a section for
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35 each resource and a section for application configuration.
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37 The main section, denoted [::SilverMirror::], has the following options:
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39 * directory: base directory for SilverMirror. The SilverMirror
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40 configuration is stored in ${directory}/.silvermirror . If omitted,
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41 the user's home directory is used.
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43 * ignore: global patterns of files and directories to ignore. Paths
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44 matching these patterns will not be versioned.
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45
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46 * reflector: which back-end to use (unison, hg, etc)
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48 Each section has the following configuration options:
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50 * directory: path of the resource. If a relative path is used, it is
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51 joined with the directory setting from the main section. If this
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52 setting is not specified, the section name is used as a relative path.
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54 * ignore: paths not to version on a per resource basis. This is in
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55 addition to the patterns specified by the ignore setting in the main
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56 section.
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58 * conflict: handler to resolve conflict.
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60 * hosts: hosts to push/pull from
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62 In order to ensure coherency among resources, all relevant
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63 configuration options must be synced prior to push/pull transactions.
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65 Default Configuration::
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66
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67 [::SilverMirror::]
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68 conflict = ClobberRemote
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69
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70 Example of a more complex configuration::
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71
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72 [::SilverMirror::]
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73 conflict.push = ClobberRemote
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74 conflict.pull = ClobberLocal
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76 == Push ==
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78 Push changes to remote resources. When resources are pushed, first
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79 changes are pulled from each remote host in turn, conflicts between
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80 local and remote changes are resolved (see Behavior on Conflicts),
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81 then local modifications are pushed. This is done to keep the
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82 resources in sync.
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84 When new files are added to the resource they are automatically added
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85 to the hg repository. When resource files are edited the changes are
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86 pushed to the repository. When a conflict occurs between local
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87 resources and remote resources, the conflict handler is used.
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88
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89 == Pull ==
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91 Get changes to the cloud filesystem resources. If no host is
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92 specified, pull changes from all known + accessible hosts.
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94 == Namespaced Resources ==
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96 It is possible to maintain versioning of a subdirectory within a
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97 resource.
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98
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99 Example::
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100
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101 [docs]
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102 directory = /path/to/docs
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103
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104 [docs:private]
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106 This configuration snippet describes a resource, [docs:private],
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107 namespaced within the [docs] resource. [docs:private] inherits
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108 configuration and behavior from [docs] but may be dealt with
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109 separately. For example, some computers in the cloud may not have
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110 [docs:private] specified in their configuration and so will not get a
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111 copy of it upon pulling. A common use case is specifying a
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112 subdirectory to be omitted with the ignore option in the configuration
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113 file, then, when this subdirectory needs to be shared between multiple
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114 computers, removing it from the ignore values and including as a
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115 namespaced resource.
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117 In the above example, because the directory option was not specified
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118 in the [docs:private] section, the path to [docs:private] is taken
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119 from its namespace (private) and the directory of its parent resource.
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120 So its base directory is /path/to/docs/private . If a relative path
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121 was specified in the directory option of the [docs:private] section,
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122 it would be joined with the base directory of [docs].
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123
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124 == Behavior on Conflicts ==
0
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125
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126 Conflict handlers are set via setuptools entry points. Several
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127 conflict handlers are provided with SilverMirror:
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128
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129 * ClobberLocal: replace local changes with changes from remote files
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130
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131 * ClobberRemote: replace remote file changes with changes from local
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132 files
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133
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134 * Edit: invoke an editor (default: $EDITOR) to interactively resolve
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135 the conflicts
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136
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137 The conflict handler may also be specified from the command line:
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138
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139 silvermirror push -d ClobberRemote
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140
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141 == Command Line Usage ==
0
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142
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143 silvermirror [push|pull] [resource] [options]
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144
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145 In the simplest invocation, SilverMirror is used with no command line
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146 arguments::
0
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147
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148 silvermirror
0
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149
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150 This pushes changes of the resource as determined by the current
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151 working directory after pulling outstanding changes from all
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152 applicable remote computers and invoking the conflict handler for
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153 push. If the current working directory is not within a resource, all
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154 resources will be pushed.
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155
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156 Finer control is obtained by specifying command line arguments:
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157
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158 [push|pull] : whether to use the push method (which includes pulling
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159 for changes; see above) or the pull method. If not specified, the
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160 resource is pushed.
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161
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162 [resource] : which resource to act upon. This can be the resource
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163 name, as specified in the .ini file, or the path to the base directory
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164 of the resource. Note that if a path is specified, it must be to the
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165 base directory of the resource as SilverMirror has no notion of
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166 disparate versioning within a resource. If the resource is not
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167 specified, the resource that the current working directory is within
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168 is used. If the current working directory is not in a resource path,
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169 all resources are acted upon in turn. If the key word "--all" is used,
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170 all resources will also be acted upon.
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171
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172 [options] : several command line switches are available to the
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173 silvermirror program:
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174
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175 * -d <handler> : specify which conflict handler to use. <handler>
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176 should be the name of the desired conflict handler. A list of all
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177 conflict handlers is available with the "--conflict-handlers" option.
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178
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179 * -H <host>, --host=<host> : pull and/or push only to specified
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180 hosts. If this option is used more than once, the hosts specified will
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181 be acted upon.
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182
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183 * --conflict-handlers : list the name and description (if
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184 specified) for all available conflict handlers.
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185
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186 * --help : displays help and usage information
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187
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188 Behavior Respecting Versioned Directories
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189
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190 SilverMirror does not desire to duplicate versioning on directories
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191 already under version control (svn, bzr, hg). These resources are
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192 automatically ignore. In a future implementation, these resources
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193 would optionally be checked out or updated upon a pull.
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194
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195 == Automatic Syncronization ==
0
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196
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197 SilverMirror includes a script that will automatically invoke
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198 syncronizing the resources in a specified period of time. This daemon,
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199 called silvermirrord, is invoked from the command line with options
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200 parallel to the silvermirror program. One additional option, -s, tells
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201 how many seconds between syncs. Upon invocation, this program puts
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202 itself in the background and performs the desired sync every number of
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203 seconds specified. It is important that the conflict handler specified
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204 is noninteractive, otherwise the daemon will hang forever.
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205
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206 As an alternative, the silvermirror program may be invoked from a cron
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207 job.
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208
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209 == Events ==
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210
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211 SilverMirror [TODO] may be hooked up to an event listener for
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212 filesystem changes and sync on them.
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213
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214 == Future Work ==
0
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215
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216 SilverMirror implements a cloud filesystem which may be accessed
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217 nearly transparently by an arbitrary number of computers. Several
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218 improvements could extend SilverMirror to solve several deficiencies
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219 of modern filesystem.
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220
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221 * tagging: in most filesystems, a file has a canonical location.
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222 However, it may be desirable to have the file accesible via multiple
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223 paths. In practice, this is achieved via symbolic links. However, this
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224 requires manual maintaince of links vs the canonical location. Noting
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225 that this problem is identical to tagging, a solution minimizing
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226 manual intervention could be added to SilverMirror.
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227
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228 * update of web documents: modern computers deal heavily with
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229 documents via URLs. It is noted that this includes files, the URL of a
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230 file with path ${PATH} being file://${PATH} noted implicitly from
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231 contexts. However, existing shells and operating systems have no
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232 mechanism for indicating that a "file" is a web resource. Such
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233 functionality could be added to SilverMirror so that up-to-date
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234 versions of web resources could be maintained. This infrastructure
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235 could also include notions for updating versioned resources (see
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236 Behavior Respecting Versioned Directories) with parallel notation.
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237
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238 * portable SilverMirror: a utility should be created to put a
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239 SilverMirror backup scheme on portable media. This not only
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240 includes a backup of the files, but also the SilverMirror program and
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241 all of the files necessary to create a new SilverMirror node.
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242
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243 * SilverMirror + Firefox Sync
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244
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245 == Vision ==
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246
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247 Essentially, SilverMirror is intended as a portable filesystem on a
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248 filesystem type interface.