The Session Settings are options that define certain session operations.
They can be changed as long as the Data Inventory has not been started. In a Cloud Session, only the first Session Member can modify the Session Settings.
Data Type
The Data Type defines whether files and/or directories are identified during the Data Inventory and are synchronizable during the Data Synchronization.
The Data Type drop-down list (A.1) offers 3 values: Files, Directories and Files and Directories:
- If you select Files, only files are analyzed during the data inventory and displayed in the data comparison list. Synchronization actions can only be defined on files.
- If you select Directories, only directories are scanned during the data inventory and displayed in the data comparison list. Synchronization actions can only be defined on directories.
- If you select Files and Directories, both files and directories are analyzed and compared. Synchronization actions can be defined on files and directories.
Binding and pseudo-identity
Pseudo-identity
Once the data is inventoried, ByteSync groups it according to its pseudo-identity, defined as follows:
- The type of the data: directory or file.
- The relative path or name of the data, depending on the Binding parameter, case and path separator management.
Binding parameter
The Binding drop-down list (A.2) offers 2 values: Relative path and Name.
- If you select Relative path, 2 files or directories will be considered as the same if they have the same relative path.
- If you select Name, 2 files or directories will be considered as the same if they have the same name.
Case management
Case management is determined automatically by ByteSync and responds to the differences between Windows systems, Linux systems and macOS.
With the default behavior, the Windows file system treats file and directory names without regard to case. FOO.txt and foo.txt will be treated as equivalent files. However, support for case sensitivity by directory has begun in Windows 10, build 17107 (More information: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/case-sensitivity)
With the default behavior, Linux and macOS file systems treat file and directory names as case-sensitive. FOO.txt and foo.txt will be treated as separate files.
ByteSync treats Windows as case insensitive, and Linux and macOS as case sensitive. ByteSync’s behavior towards case sensitivity is as follows:
- When doing Local Synchronization or Cloud Synchronization with Windows-only clients: the grouping is case insensitive.
- In case of Local Synchronization or Cloud Synchronization with Linux or macOS clients only: the grouping is case sensitive.
- In case of Cloud Synchronization with Windows and Linux/macOS clients: the grouping is case insensitive.
Path separator management
Path separators differ between Windows, which use the ‘\’ separator, and Linux/macOS, which use the ‘/’ separator. ByteSync is insensitive to this separator difference and will handle paths correctly regardless of the separator.
Example 1
Client A runs on a Windows machine. On data source A1, there is a File1.txt file located in \Dir1\DirA\File1.txt.
Client B runs on a Linux machine. On data source B1, there is a File1.txt file located in /Dir1/DirB/File1.txt.
If Binding is set to Relative path, the 2 files will be considered different, because they do not have the same relative path.
If Binding is set to Name, the 2 files will be considered as the same, because they have the same file name.
Example 2
Client A runs on a Windows machine. On data source A1, there is a file File1.txt located in \Dir1\DirA\File1.txt.
Client B runs on a Linux machine. On data source B1, there is a file1.txt located in /dir1/dirB/file1.txt.
If Binding is set to Relative path, the 2 files will be considered different, because they do not have the same relative path.
If Binding is set to Name, the 2 files will be considered as the same, because they have the same file name as case is not taken into account in this case.
Example 3
Client A runs on a Linux machine. On data source A1, there is a file File1.txt located in /Dir1/DirA/File1.txt.
Client B runs on a macOS machine. On data source B1, there is a file1.txt located in /dir1/dirB/file1.txt.
If Binding is set to Relative path, the 2 files will be considered different, because they do not have the same relative path.
If Binding is set to Name, the 2 files will be considered as different, because they don’t have the same name as the case is taken into account in this case.
Ignored files and folders
ByteSync offers 2 settings to ignore certain files and directories:
- Ignore hidden files (A.3)
When this setting is enabled, files and directories that are hidden in the system sense are ignored. Hidden directories will not be traversed during the scan and their contents will not be identified. - Ignore system files (A.4)
When this parameter is enabled, “system” files and directories are ignored. System” directories will not be traversed during the scan and their contents will not be identified.
A file is considered to be a system file if its name is listed as follows: “desktop.ini”, “thumbs.db”, “.DS_Store”.
Analysis Mode
The Analysis Mode affects whether ByteSync calculates the rsync signature of files or not.
The Analysis Mode drop-down list (A.5) has 2 values: Smart and Checksum.
Here are the different possible cases:
- When a file is present only on one data source, its rsync signature is never calculated.
- When a file is present on at least 2 data sources and the size or the last modification date differs, then the rsync signature is calculated
- When a file is present on at least 2 data sources and the size and last modification date are the same, then :
– If the Analysis Mode is set to Smart, the rsync signature is not calculated.
– If the Analysis Mode is set to Checksum, the rsync signature is calculated.
The Data Inventory will take longer if the Analysis Mode is set to Checksum, but this mode prevents files with different content but identical size and modification date from escaping synchronization.
