.TH task-sync 5 2013-04-07 "${PACKAGE_STRING}" "User Manuals"

.SH NAME
task-sync \- A discussion and tutorial for the various task(1) data
synchronization capabilities.

.SH INTRODUCTION
Taskwarrior has several sync options, external and internal.  If you wish to
sync your data, choose one method only; mixing methods is only going to lead to
problems.  Each of the methods discussed have their own strengths.

.SH ALTERNATIVES
There are three alternatives for syncing data, which are:

1) Version control systems, such as git, hg, svn
.br
2) File hosting systems, such as DropBox
.br
3) Using the Task Server and the 'sync' command


.SH OPTION 1: VERSION CONTROL SYSTEMS
There are several good VCS systems (git, hg, svn ...), and they function in a
similar fashion for our purposes.

Setup is straightforward.  You place your .task directory under revision
control.  You then need to perform a regular commit/push/pull to make sure that
the data is propagated when needed.  You can even do this using shell scripts so
that every task command is preceded by a 'pull' and followed by a 'push'.

Strengths:
.br
  - Good data transport mechanisms
.br
  - Secure transport options

Weaknesses:
.br
  - You need proficiency with VCS tools
.br
  - You will need to manually resolve conflicts frequently
.br
  - You need to provide the mechanism for making sure copies are up to date


.SH OPTION 2: FILE HOSTING SERVICES
There are many file hosting services, such as DropBox, Amazon S3, Google Drive,
SkyDrive and more.  This technique involves storing your .task directory in a
shared directory under the control of the file hosting services.

Syncing happens quickly, although it is possible to run into conflict situations
when there is no network connectivity, and the tasks are modified in two
separate locations.  This is because the file hosting service knows only about
files, and it has no idea how to merge tasks.  Avoid this problem by never
modifying the same task on two machines, without an intervening sync.

Setup simply involves creating the directory and modifying your data.location
configuration variable like this:

    $ task config data.location /path/to/shared/directory

Strengths:
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  - Always secure
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  - Good client support
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  - Easy setup
.br
  - Transparent use

Weaknesses:
.br
  - Tasks not properly merged


.SH OPTION 3: TASK SERVER
The Task Server was designed for this purpose to be secure, fast and conflict
free, allowing data interchange between assorted Taskwarrior clients, and
tolerant of network connectivity problems.

There is a 'sync' command built in to Taskwarrior, and with a server account
and client configuration, syncing is done on demand.

Setup is a matter of creating an account on a Task Server (see your Task Server
provider or operate your own - see
http://taskwarrior.org/projects/taskwarrior/wiki/Server_setup)

Once you have an account, you'll receive a certificate, and a password.  You'll
need to put the certificate somewhere like this:

    $ cp <name>.cert.pem ~/.task

Then you configure Taskwarrior, using the account details:

    $ task config taskd.certificate ~/.task/<name>.cert.pem
    $ task config taskd.credentials <organization>/<name>/<password>
    $ task config taskd.server      <server domain>:<port>

After setup, you run a one-time sync initialization, like this:

    $ task sync initialize

This will make sure your client and the server are properly in sync to begin
with.  From this point on, you never run the 'initialize' command again, just
go about your business, and when you want to sync, run this:

    $ task sync

You'll see a summary of how many tasks were uploaded and downloaded.  You can
safely run the command as often as you like.  When there are no changes to sync,
nothing happens.  If you do not have connectivity, your task changes accumulate
so that when you next run 'sync' with proper connectivity, the changes are
properly handled, in the right order.

Strengths:
.br
  - Always secure
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  - Minimal bandwidth
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  - Tolerates connectivity outage


.SH "CREDITS & COPYRIGHTS"
Copyright (C) 2006 \- 2013 P. Beckingham, F. Hernandez.

Taskwarrior is distributed under the MIT license. See
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php for more information.

.SH SEE ALSO
.BR task(1),
.BR tasksh(1),
.BR taskrc(5),
.BR task-faq(5),
.BR task-color(5),
.BR task-tutorial(5),

For more information regarding task, the following may be referenced:

.TP
The official site at
<http://taskwarrior.org>

.TP
The official code repository at
<git://tasktools.org/task.git/>

.TP
You can contact the project by writing an email to
<support@taskwarrior.org>

.SH REPORTING BUGS
.TP
Bugs in task may be reported to the issue-tracker at
<http://taskwarrior.org>