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https://github.com/bcpierce00/unison

Unison file synchronizer
https://github.com/bcpierce00/unison

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Unison file synchronizer

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![Unison](icons/unison.png)



# Unison File Synchronizer



## Meta



***Please read this entire README and

https://github.com/bcpierce00/unison/wiki/Reporting-Bugs-and-Feature-Requests

before creating or commenting on a github issue.***



***TL;DR: Do not ask questions or ask for help in issues.  Upgrade to the latest release.***



Please also read https://github.com/bcpierce00/unison/wiki before

interacting with the issue tracker or asking for help.



## About



Unison is a file-synchronization tool for POSIX-compliant systems

(e.g. *BSD, GNU/Linux, macOS) and Windows.  It allows two replicas of a

collection of files and directories to be stored on different hosts

(or different disks on the same host), modified separately, and then

brought up to date by propagating the changes in each replica to the

other.



Unison has been in use for over 20 years and many people use it to

synchronize data they care about.



Features:



 * Unison works across platforms, allowing you to synchronize a

   Windows laptop with a Unix server, for example.



 * Unlike simple mirroring or backup utilities, Unison can deal with

   updates to both replicas of a distributed directory

   structure. Updates that do not conflict can be propagated

   automatically. Conflicting updates are detected and displayed.



 * Unlike many network filesystems, Unison copies data so that

   already-synchronized data can be read and written while offline.



 * Unlike most distributed filesystems, Unison is a user-level program

   that simply uses normal systems calls: there is no need to modify

   the kernel, to have superuser privileges on either host, or to have

   a FUSE implementation.



 * Unison works between any pair of machines connected to the

   internet, typically communicating over ssh, but also directly over

   TCP.  It is careful with network bandwidth, and runs well over slow

   links. Transfers of small updates to large files are optimized using

   a compression protocol similar to rsync.



 * Unison is resilient to failure. It is careful to leave the replicas

   and its own private structures in a sensible state at all times,

   even in case of abnormal termination or communication failures.



 * Unison can run in "repeat" mode with a filesystem monitor, so that

   changes are synchronized soon after they happen.



 * Unison has a clear and precise specification.



 * Unison is Free; full source code is available under the GNU Public

   License, Version 3.



## Contributing



Note that only a very small number of people are actively working on

maintaining unison.  An estimate is 2.5 people and 0.1 Full-Time

Equivalents.  This has a substantial impact on the handling of bug

reports and enhancement reports.  Help in terms of high-quality bug

reports, fixes, and proposed changes is very welcome.  Help in

answering mailinglist questions is also welcome.  Please do not answer

questions asked in the bug tracker, which is contrary to bug tracker

usage guidance.



See `CONTRIBUTING.md` for a longer discussion.



## Community



Unison activity is now centered on the two [Unison

mailinglists](https://github.com/bcpierce00/unison/wiki/Mailing-Lists)

for discussion and [Unison's github

page](https://github.com/bcpierce00/unison/) for code, issues and a

wiki.



The `unison-users@` list is appropriate for asking for help.  The

`unison-hackers@` list is appropriate for discussions where

participants might be reading source code in order to inform the

discussion.



A no-longer-maintained FAQ can be found at: the [old UPenn

site](http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison).



## Getting Unison



The Unison project provides Unison as source code.  Many packaging

systems (including GNU/Linux distributions) provide binary packages of

Unison.  Results from Continuous Integration builds, while performed

for the purposes of testing, are available for use on a limited set of

platforms.



See the [top-level wiki

page](https://github.com/bcpierce00/unison/wiki) for a variety of

information, including how to access Unison documentation.



See the [building instructions](INSTALL.md), or read the CI

recipes.



You should use the most recent formal release, or a newer version from

git.  Earlier versions are no longer maintained, and bug reports are

not accepted about these versions.  This is true even though many

packaging systems (including GNU/Linux distributions) continue to have

2.51 or even 2.48.  The master branch in git historically has been

quite stable.