Force Rsync Command via SSH but Allow Any Directory

February 21, 2014Updated on December 21, 2024 JS Morisset rsync, SSH, UNIX (Generic)

Recently, I needed to sync several directories on a backup / fail-over server with the same directories on a production server. Rsync over SSH takes care of this, but if you want to tighten security, you must use the “command” restriction in the SSH authorized_keys file — This restricts the authenticated key to running a single command, with a specific set of arguments. For example, let’s look at a typical command that might be run from a backup server to rsync daily database dumps:

backup$ rsync -av --delete -e "ssh -i $HOME/.ssh/prod-rsync-key" \
    prod:/var/lib/mysql/dump/ /var/lib/mysql/dump/

Date-Based Rewrites for Static CDN

September 21, 2012Updated on December 21, 2024 JS Morisset HTTP Server

Content Delivery Networks (CDN) have become very popular in the past several years. They offer an easy way to save bandwidth and bring content physically closer to end-users. CDNs offer a variety of services, though pricing and features are usually tailored to larger content providers. As a smaller provider myself with only an ADSL line to host my personal websites — and as a SysAdmin who prefers to host his own content — I decided to mirror my static content, and redirect traffic as I needed. The following describes a solution to keeping all of my content local, yet mirroring the static content for faster delivery.