rsync useful w/ encrypted files?
- by barrycarter
Is rsync efficient for transferring encrypted files? More specifically:
I encrypt 'x' with my public key and call the result 'y'.
I rsync 'y' to my backup server.
'x' changes slightly
I encrypt the modified 'x' and rsync the modified 'y' to my backup server.
Is this efficient? I know a small change in 'x' yields a large change
in 'y', but is the change localized? Or has 'y' changed so thoroughly
that rsync is not much better than scp?
I currently backup my "critical" files by tarring/bzipping them
nightly, then encrypting the .tar.bz file and rsync'ing it to my
backup server.
Many of the individual files don't change, but, of course, the tar
file changes if even one of the files change.
Is this efficient? Should I be encrypting and backing up each file
individually? That way, unchanged files will take no time to rsync.