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Syncthing – a continuous file synchronization program

syncthing.net

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Re: Syncthing – a continuous file synchronization program

#171

Syncthing works brilliantly! The web UI is excellent, warns you when you're about to do something ill-advised, and stuff like QR codes makes adding clients and folders fairly easy. The separation between folders and devices is handled well. You can easily have half a dozen shared folders between several computers with any mix-and-match combination including which one is 'authoritative' and so on. I used to use it on…

I would not qualify the web UI of "excellent" : understanding the relations between paired devices, remote devices, folders you want to sync, and so on is harder than what it should be. Likewise, the android application is so bad the best way is to open the web UI on your phone to do stuff (and sometimes, it's the only way to achieve some goals). There is definitely a lot of room for improvement for easier adoption,…

Never really had any problem understanding the relationships, and haven't met anyone that has so far. Then again I'm a programmer.

How would you make things clearer?

Re: Syncthing – a continuous file synchronization program

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Lawsuit for what? Not providing an API for a feature you want?

It's not like Apple specifically advertised background services, then lied about it.

The device is specifically built like that, and you can buy a different phone if it's that big of an issue.

It feels like complaining your toaster doesn't have a dark enough toast setting that you want. Is there a lawsuit in that?

Re: Syncthing – a continuous file synchronization program

#173

syncthing is excellent for sharing also between groups. I wish it worked better for occasional file sharing (for example to transfer files between phone/pc). I don't want to keep it running in the background - just sucks too much power, and on the phone I never need to keep other stuff synched. But the time it takes for the first connect to happen after starting it can be in the order if minutes on a known network, d…

for fast occasional sharing you have KDEConnect

I don't see a command-line or daemon backend. Not really comparable, even if I happened to use kde.

Re: Syncthing – a continuous file synchronization program

#174

I use Syncthing to sync my KeepassXC db file between laptops and my android, always on a local network. For the most part I like it. I get a lot of conflicts though and I can't use ediff (or similar) because the file is encrypted. Curious if anyone has figured out how to fix conflicts with Keypass db files because I don't think Syncthing's conflict resolution can handle them very well.

KeepassXC has built in db file merge support! It's hidden somewhere in the menus. I've never personally had to do something more complicated than "I added a new entry on two different devices before syncing" but it's worked well for me so far.

>It's hidden somewhere in the menus

File > Merge with database

I saved my database's password as an entry just to quickly merge it with the .sync-conflict version. It takes 2 seconds, and I don't worry about losing anything anymore. Works beautifully for me. KeePass could check for such conflicts (syncthing, dropbox or else) in the directory where the open database is stored and suggest to auto-merge.

Re: Syncthing – a continuous file synchronization program

#175

Syncthing works brilliantly! The web UI is excellent, warns you when you're about to do something ill-advised, and stuff like QR codes makes adding clients and folders fairly easy. The separation between folders and devices is handled well. You can easily have half a dozen shared folders between several computers with any mix-and-match combination including which one is 'authoritative' and so on. I used to use it on…

To add there is also Syncthing for Android TV, makes so much easier transfering files between devices, like to a seedbox.

Re: Syncthing – a continuous file synchronization program

#176
post #152
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…

Syncthing has many options for versioning. Ability to keep versions of files is THE reason I use it.

https://docs.syncthing.net/users/faq.html?highlight=backup#i...

Re: Syncthing – a continuous file synchronization program

#177
post #73
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On Ubuntu (and probably other distros that use Systemd as well) you need to enable the user service manually once for your user: systemctl --user enable --now syncthing.service This will start syncthing whenever your user session is active. By default that means when you login. If you run this command: sudo loginctl enable-linger $USER Then your user service manager will be started at boot and run regardless if you a…

More information: https://docs.syncthing.net/users/autostart.html#using-system... The Debian/Ubuntu packages ship all the needed files. You only need to activate them.

Supervisord also works really well for this purpose https://docs.syncthing.net/users/autostart.html#using-superv...

Re: Syncthing – a continuous file synchronization program

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a hybrid, where I don't use the sync features of next cloud, but do use the contacts and calendar. Syncthing is setup to sync to the Nextcloud files folder, and a nextcloud config option (forget the exact option) allows Nextcloud to immediately pick up the files that syncthing dropped.

For the contacts and calendar I still use the VPS, but with radicale [0] instead of Nextcloud. The resource usage is minimal, probably the attack surface too. And I like the do one thing and do it well mantra (in this case, CalDAV/CardDAV). [0] https://radicale.org/3.0.html

Baikal is also really nice and comes with a handy GUI

https://sabre.io/baikal/

Re: Syncthing – a continuous file synchronization program

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I'll just have to pay $49.99 a year for iCloud! Why isn't this a lawsuit yet?

Lawsuit for what? Not providing an API for a feature you want? It's not like Apple specifically advertised background services, then lied about it. The device is specifically built like that, and you can buy a different phone if it's that big of an issue. It feels like complaining your toaster doesn't have a dark enough toast setting that you want. Is there a lawsuit in that?

> you can buy a different phone if it's that big of an issue.

- I can't change my car's satnav. You can buy another car if it's that big a deal.

I think we can agree, the above statement reads silly.

Sometimes, no matter the deal size - buying a new thing isn't always a reasonable option.

Re: Syncthing – a continuous file synchronization program

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lawsuit for what? Not providing an API for a feature you want? It's not like Apple specifically advertised background services, then lied about it. The device is specifically built like that, and you can buy a different phone if it's that big of an issue. It feels like complaining your toaster doesn't have a dark enough toast setting that you want. Is there a lawsuit in that?

> you can buy a different phone if it's that big of an issue. - I can't change my car's satnav. You can buy another car if it's that big a deal. I think we can agree, the above statement reads silly. Sometimes, no matter the deal size - buying a new thing isn't always a reasonable option.

There are cars where you can change the built-in sat nav?
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