GitHub - rsyncOSX/RsyncOSX: A macOS GUI for rsync

README.md

RsyncOSX

This repository is the source code for the macOS app RsyncOSX. RsyncOSX is compiled with support for macOS El Capitan version 10.11 - macOS Mojave version 10.14. The application is implemented in Swift 4 by using Xcode 10. RsyncOSX is not depended upon any third party binary distributions. There is, however, one third party source code included to check for TCP connections. The check is for informal use only and can be removed.

A short intro to RsyncOSX and full documentation of RsyncOSX.

About signing and notarizing of RsyncOSX.app see below.

The main view of RsyncOSX. Automatic synchronizing in action.

Signing and notarizing

The app is signed with my Apple ID developer certificate and notarized by Apple. If you have Xcode developer tools installed executing the following command will verify the RsyncOSX.app.

xcrun stapler validate no.blogspot.RsyncOSX RsyncOSX.app
Processing: /Volumes/Home/thomas/GitHub/RsyncOSX/Build/Products/Release/RsyncOSX.app
The validate action worked!

This is the message when opening a downloaded version (from version > 5.5.5).

The message is in Norwegian: "Apple har sjekket programmet uten å finne ondsinnet programvare.". The english version of it is: "Apple checked it for malicious software and none was detected.".

About bugs?

What happens if bugs occurs during execution of tasks in RsyncOSX? The command line tool rsync is designed to continue where rsync is by any reason, stopped or killed. Users can abort execution of tasks at any time within RsyncOSX. To continue an aborted task execute the task again and rsync will restart and complete the task. This is also true if a bug in RsyncOSX occurs during execution of a task.

Rsync is a file-based synchronization and backup tool. There is no custom solution for the backup archive. You can quit utilizing RsyncOSX (and rsync) at any time and still have access to all synchronized files.

About crash and restore

If RsyncOSX does halt or crash during operation there is no damage to files or deletion of files in the source. The source is only read during synchronize and snapshot tasks. But if you do a restore from the remote to the source, some files in the source might be deleted. This is due to how rsync works in synchronize mode. As a precaution never do a restore directly from the remote to the source, always do a restore to a temporary restore catalog.

Application icon

The application icon is created by Zsolt Sándor. All rights reserved to Zsolt Sándor.

Changelog

The Changelog.

How to use RsyncOSX - YouTube videos

There are four short YouTube videos of RsyncOSX:

• getting RsyncOSX and installing it
  • the video also shows how to create the two local ssh certificates for password less logins to remote server
• adding and executing the first backup
• doing a full restore to a temporary local restore catalogs
• how to change version of rsync utilized by RsyncOSX

Rsync

The default version of rsync in macOS is old (version 2.6.9, protocol version 29). Version 2.6.9 was released in nov 2006. The current release of rsync is version 3.1.3 protocol 31 released 28 January 2018. There are at least three options to get and install the current version of rsync for use in RsyncOSX:

• get rsync-3.1.3.dmg from releases to install the latest version of rsync
• install Xcode and download the rsync source from rsync.samba.org
  • required tools are gcc and make which are part of Xcode command line tool (you might be able to install Xcode command line tool only by downloading the tools from Apple Developer page)
  • untar the source archive and use make to compile and install, rsync compiles without any issues on macOS
• install homebrew and then install rsync as part of homebrew

In RsyncOSX select user configuration and set path for optional version of rsync.

SwiftLint

As part of this version of RsyncOSX I am using SwiftLint as tool for writing more readable code. Adapting RsyncOSX to SwiftLint rules will take some time. There are about 10,000 lines of code in RsyncOSX (too many?). Many changes in code has been applied, but there are still some more to do before RsyncOSX is more compliant to SwiftLint rules.

Compile

To compile the code, install Xcode and open the RsyncOSX project file. Before compiling, open in Xcode the RsyncOSX/General preference page (after opening the RsyncOSX project file) and replace your own credentials in Signing, or disable Signing.

There are two ways to compile, either utilize make or compile by Xcode. make release will compile the RsyncOSX.app and make dmg will make a dmg file to be released. The build of dmg files are by utilizing andreyvit script for creating dmg and syncthing-macos setup.

Development

Details about how RsyncOSX is built.

MacUpdate and Softpedia

RsyncOSX is also released on MacUpdate and linked for download on Softpedia as well.

My NAS setup

I have setup up my own NAS. My NAS SW is now FreeNAS. I am doing backups by using RsyncOSX and sharing out disk by AFP and SMB.

RcloneOSX

I have commenced a new project, the new project RcloneOSX is adapting RsyncOSX to utilize rclone. See the Changelog for the new project.