[clue-tech] rsync ports and daemon

[David L. Anselmi]

Angelo Bertolli wrote:
> 
> Keith Hellman wrote:
>> On Fri, Jul 29, 2005 at 05:08:24PM -0400, Angelo Bertolli wrote:
>>> Can someone explain how rsyncd works?  I've turned off the daemon, 
>>> nothing is listening on port 873, etc. and yet anyone with shell 
>>> access can still use rsync.  Does rsync try to go over ssh by 
>>> default?  How is it able to accept connections if it's not running?
>>
>> It seems to use ssh by default, yes.  IIRC it used to use rsh, but it
>> is definetely using ssh by default now (at least on my box).  And yes,
>> anyone with shell access would be able to rsync - I suspect you could
>> turn this ability off by disabling ssh to the users account (check the
>> configuration files under /etc/sshd).
>>
> So I guess I have to ask:  what's the point of rsync --daemon ?

When rsync is run over ssh or rsh, the user must have credentials that 
allow running it.  That usually means an account, though ssh gives some 
flexibility there.  Maintaining accounts can be labor intensive and is 
frequently impractical (e.g., to provide a service for anonymous users).

If you're in an environment where you transfer files using rcp, or scp, 
or rdist, running rsync over [rs]sh is convenient.  If you're using 
(anonymous) ftp or http, using rsyncd is convenient.  Nice that you get 
to choose.

Dave
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