unison star topology

Question

How exactly does unison star topology work? I sort of understand the concept that one machine acts as the HUB where every spoke syncs to it but is it just a concept and I have to implement it on my own or is this some kind of feature built into unison?

If I have to script this myself how exactly would I do it, what are the sync steps?

Answer 1

Unison is a bidirectional synching system that you can use anyway you want. To avoid synchronization confllicts however, a star topology is often preferred, but there is nothing that forces you to do it in that way, nor is there any node to be designated as 'hub' or that needs a special implementation. As far as the protocol is concerned, all nodes are peers (unless you run in socket mode, which is insecure, and only intended for specific needs).

I use unison in a star topology, and I don't need any special scripting. Mostly I initiate the synch from the clients, but nothing prevents me from initiating it from the server, or to synch 2 clients directly when the server is down. But the latter "unstructured" approach has a higher risk to become unmanagable, especially if you have a lot of clients.