[coldsync-hackers] Coldsync Client program

[Marco van Beek <marco at 84andahalf dot com>]

Hi All,

Been trying to get my brain around how Coldsync needs to behave in a 
client/server architecture, and I realised that there doesn't seem to be 
any client sync process (other than HotSync) that will do a network sync.

Given that Coldsync is primarily a "server" based system, I have come to 
realise that there is something missing from the chain. In my ideal 
world, the only cradles to be directly connected to the Coldsync server 
would be the ones used to initialise a new PDA. All the users would use 
the network to sync from their own workstations (still thinking about an 
external solution at the moment).

The coldsync daemon could run from inetd (or xinetd) and as many 
processes as were needed would be running simultaneously. (at the moment 
I am still running coldsync net via inittab, but haven't tried inetd 
with v3 yet).

On the workstation would be another Coldsync daemon. This would would be 
running on a local port / cradle, but it would look up the "primary pc" 
record in the palm, and set up a network sync directly to the Coldsync 
Server. In an ideal world, I would be able to drop my PDA into any of 
the workstation cradles and get a sync, as this would allow for hotdesking.

What would be really neat is if the client Coldsync daemon could run via 
SSH and could be set up with private keys stored in a preferences file 
in the PDA (something similar has been mentioned on this list to improve 
 the underlying security of the sync process). This means that I could 
sync from outside my network simply by having an Internet accessible ssh 
server.

It's not a great roadwarrior solution, but there is also a PPtP solution 
for the Palm that would fit into my ideal architecture as well.

And I guess if the Coldsync client program is written in Perl, there is 
a good chance it could get ported to other platforms without having a 
major re-write of the server based code, which means Windows and MacOSX 
become natural extensions of the system.

Is this a good vision of the future of coldsync?

Please wait one moment while I don my asbestos suit...

;-)

Regards.

Marco






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