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Syncthing – a continuous file synchronization program

syncthing.net

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Re: Syncthing – a continuous file synchronization program

#111
I am a huge Syncthing fan. I even recommend it to non-techie friends, and (after a bit of initial hesitance from having to learn the concepts) they are quite fond of it too, especially as a smartphone backup solution.

It's especially useful for our band, where we share large amounts of .wav files and recording projects and so on. It even works in the rehearsal room (which has no internet) through an old wifi router I set up there, that each of our laptops connects to.

Re: Syncthing – a continuous file synchronization program

#112
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, I guess I should qualify that and say that there's no iOS client that is actually practical to use . NextCloud integrates into iOS's Files app pretty tightly as a 'storage provider' or whatever Apple calls it. End result is that my password database is magically up-to-date whenever I go to use it in my password manager, probably because Files sees an app trying to access the file, pings NextCloud to say "yo, is…

It's Apple. You are of course welcome to pay their exorbitant development fees yourself, go through the insane review process and publish your own competing app!

You can't publish your own competing app. The desired behaviour requires running a background service (not allowed) that watches arbitrary folders (not allowed).

Re: Syncthing – a continuous file synchronization program

#113
post #75

Regarding backups... Syncthing is great for propagating changes to all devices, but does not offer much in terms of backups and previous versions of files. (And I'm fine with that. I consider that to be out of scope for Syncthing.) I've been thinking about solving the backup part by letting one of the devices perform btrfs snapshots on its storage. Does anyone know about any write-up that describes or compares such s…

I’ve set up a single always on desktop computer as my backup hub. Syncthing is used to sync everything I care about to that machine, and backblaze pulls everything to the cloud as versioned backups. I use a .stignore file to exclude some things from syncing (like node_modules) and similarly backblaze is configured to exclude some things from the cloud backup. There’s also a regular local backup to an external drive (time machine). The setup took some work to figure out, but it is effectively zero maintenance and robust.

Re: Syncthing – a continuous file synchronization program

#114
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The biggest bummer is that there's no iOS client. https://www.mobiussync.com/

Okay, I guess I should qualify that and say that there's no iOS client that is actually practical to use . NextCloud integrates into iOS's Files app pretty tightly as a 'storage provider' or whatever Apple calls it. End result is that my password database is magically up-to-date whenever I go to use it in my password manager, probably because Files sees an app trying to access the file, pings NextCloud to say "yo, is…

Files sees an app trying to access the file, pings NextCloud to say "yo, is this sh* up to date?"

What does it do if you're not connected? Don't mind it checking whether the local copy is up to date, but I'd be concerned if the sync trigger is you opening the app.

Re: Syncthing – a continuous file synchronization program

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea but it doesn't matter. The clean from gradle deletes the folder entirely and creates a new one in it's place. I don't care. Just sync the path. That's all I need. Instead Syncthing literally stop syncing ALL folders because "oh no something went wrong". For whatever reason open source software always has these weird edge case engineering "solutions" that really aren't that great. If someone was actually a paying…

It's easy to open a pull request instead of complaining

Commercial products usually aim to satisfy its paying customer's needs. FOSS is, not always but most times, about satisfying one's own needs. So it won't be that easy to change a developer's mind who is determined about their way of doing things even if it is not the best way for others.

Re: Syncthing – a continuous file synchronization program

#116
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's Apple. You are of course welcome to pay their exorbitant development fees yourself, go through the insane review process and publish your own competing app!

You can't publish your own competing app. The desired behaviour requires running a background service (not allowed) that watches arbitrary folders (not allowed).

I guess I'll just have to pay $49.99 a year for iCloud!

Why isn't this a lawsuit yet?

Re: Syncthing – a continuous file synchronization program

#117
post #75

Regarding backups... Syncthing is great for propagating changes to all devices, but does not offer much in terms of backups and previous versions of files. (And I'm fine with that. I consider that to be out of scope for Syncthing.) I've been thinking about solving the backup part by letting one of the devices perform btrfs snapshots on its storage. Does anyone know about any write-up that describes or compares such s…

> I've been thinking about solving the backup part by letting one of the devices perform btrfs snapshots on its storage. I do zfs snapshots on my storage server (home desktop), which is in Syncthing's "receive only" mode. I use it to sync my camera roll and Whatsapp media files from my Android phone. I use pyznap for snapshot management. > Setting up a cron job / timer unit that commits the synced folder to a git rep…

I have a script that takes a btrfs snapshot, uses borg to back up the consistent snapshot (to rsync.net), then removes the snapshot again. It then instructs Borg about which snapshots to retain, so my space shouldn't grow without bound.

For extra extra snapshotting fun, rsync.net then takes ZFS snapshots of the borg backup. So even if my snapshot cleaning gets over-enthusiastic, I'll still have a snapshot of the snapshot.

Re: Syncthing – a continuous file synchronization program

#118
Glad to see another option out there for file sync. Browsing the FAQ I noticed:

To further limit the amount of CPU used when syncing and scanning, set the environment variable GOMAXPROCS to the maximum number of CPU cores Syncthing should use

Are they using an environment variable shared by other Go programs? Seems like bad practice... why aren't they using a variable or or switch that's unique to Syncthing instead?

Re: Syncthing – a continuous file synchronization program

#119

I'm not affiliated with the channel in any way, but Lawrence Systems did a really good overview. It's what convinced me to switch to it and use it for LAN sync with my server keeping everything from my phones, laptops and desktop. It's also good for those who might have trouble understanding how it's supposed to work. I think my biggest difficulty was with the fact that normally it doesn't necessarily have the concep…

This guy works on his channel "Raid Owl" and uploads very nicely put videos, I found the channel while searching for homeserver technology videos, and find that he does a great job (but somehow hasn't been discovered by a greater public, judging by the smallish subscribers number)

He's using Syncthing for backups (by enabling a feature that keeps N copies of each file), which while possible, I hadn't thought of as a possibility

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4kWJ8JcdtM

Re: Syncthing – a continuous file synchronization program

#120

I repaced Dropbox with it a year ago and I'm satisfied, it's a great project. But atm I couldn't recommend it to even knowledgeable friends, let alone family members: - Sometimes long-deleted folders pop up when older version clients connect - Syncing or connecting takes sometimes ages to start for no obvious reason, client not giving enough info on what is happening - Relation between clients is not obvious, the pow…

Sometimes long-deleted folders pop up when older version clients connect

What causes that?

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