[HN Gopher] Syncthing - a continuous file synchronization program
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Syncthing - a continuous file synchronization program
Author : tambourine_man
Score : 469 points
Date : 2021-10-14 01:23 UTC (21 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (syncthing.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (syncthing.net)
| jwr wrote:
| Syncthing has been working for me flawlessly over the last year.
| Very impressed by it, especially compared to Dropbox, which is a
| CPU hog and has become a nagging salesperson on my computer.
|
| Highly recommended.
| pr8dan wrote:
| Love it. Have an "always-on" raspberry pi with usb drive just
| running syncthing in my home network. That way, I don't have my
| data "in the cloud" somewhere, I don't have to open my home
| network for external access to my NAS etc, and always have an up
| to date "source" when I start syncthing on a tablet or mobile
| (where i dont have them running all the time).
| asicsp wrote:
| GitHub repo: https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing
|
| Some previous discussions:
|
| * "Syncthing: Open Source Dropbox and BitTorrent Sync
| Replacement" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7734114 _(7
| years ago|184 comments)_
|
| * "Syncthing is everything I used to love about computers"
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23537243 _(1 year ago|159
| comments)_
|
| * "Syncthing: Syncing All the Things"
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27929194 _(3 months ago|172
| comments)_
| nett18 wrote:
| Something that interests me even more is that the company behind,
| Kastelo Inc., possibly bears its name from the esperantoan word
| for 'Castle'.
|
| Can anyone confirm?
| commoner wrote:
| You're probably right. Kastelo previously launched a service
| called Arigi that was later discontinued. The announcement
| notes that "arigi" means "to amass * to gather * to put
| together" in Esperanto.
|
| https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:IAwDkf...
| 0xADADA wrote:
| or its a tech startup that just named it 'Castle' spelled
| with a K-elo to make it unique
| mkr-hn wrote:
| The only thing that keeps me from using it is the lack of an
| official iOS client. Once they get that, I'll be all over it.
| scambier wrote:
| I really like Syncthing, I have it installed on my computer,
| phone, and VPS, but it's definitely not made for non-technical
| users. I have a "family" folder with a few important documents
| that are also shared on my girlfriend's computer and phone, but I
| use Resilio Sync for those.
|
| While Resilio is slightly less secure (debatable) than Syncthing,
| their UI and UX are vastly better, and virtually no different
| than something like Dropbox or Google Drive. I fully understand
| that Syncthing's developers have different priorities than UI and
| UX, but I'd love to see it become more mainstream.
| keithwbacon wrote:
| How fast is this vs rsync over ssh?
| amanzi wrote:
| Nothing but good things to say about SyncThings. I'm only using
| it on a couple of computers to keep a small about of things in
| sync, but it always works flawlessly.
| jerieljan wrote:
| Syncthing is one of the biggest reasons why I use Android today.
|
| That sounds strange, but when you have old spare phones, they're
| very useful for this. Even for the daily driver phone that I use,
| it's so good at keeping files in sync between my other PCs.
| aasasd wrote:
| On Android, Syncthing-fork is a bit nicer because it has a native
| app interface instead of the embedded web interface. However, on
| Android 11 the Play Store release doesn't work with folders other
| than /Android/media or the app's data folder or something like
| that--because of Google's continuous crusade against file access,
| effective for the newer API level that Syncthing-fork is
| targeting. But the F-Droid version doesn't have this problem.
|
| Note that the mainstream Syncthing on Android works so far only
| because they're targeting an older API version. They will hit the
| same restriction if they migrate to the new API, unless they
| implement SAF or whatever.
| nyanpasu64 wrote:
| Syncthing-Fork can't _send_ broadcast mDNS packets on Android
| 11. As a result, two Android 11 devices can 't even connect to
| each other over a LAN, and are reduced to sending all traffic
| to the Internet and back, which wastes bandwidth, probably
| hurts privacy, and throttles transfer speeds. The workaround I
| found was to hard-code one device's IP address in the other.
| Perhaps Syncthing is unaffected; I didn't test.
|
| Link: https://forum.syncthing.net/t/local-discovery-problem-on-
| and...
| aasasd wrote:
| Hmmm, I guess it only affects discovery between phones,
| because I just recently re-set up syncing with two laptops,
| and it worked fine without entering the IDs or ips or
| anything--just clicked on the discovered IDs.
|
| Of course, this issue still highlights how the 'open-source'
| and 'customizable' OS does only what Google allows it to do.
| Daegalus wrote:
| I use this for syncing game files (like MMO extensions, ui files.
| WTF folder when I used to play WoW or the FFXIV folder in my
| documents) and my code workspace folder between 4 devices, one
| being a homelab server.
|
| For the game files it's just my gaming laptop and gaming desktop
|
| I setup a connection for the folder from every device to every
| other device. Syncthing has a unique ID for the share, so they
| all share the same ID for that folder and it does all the work
| syncing. none of my project files are ever out of date on any
| device. Lets me sit down on any device and just work. (Desktop,
| windows laptop, Linux laptop, or ssh into server)
|
| Another great thing is is you set it up in WSL2, it just works,
| and all it has to do is be on a different port. Lets me sync my
| workspace files into there and get full Linux filesystem file
| watching ( the \\\wsl$\ path doesn't work well from windows side)
| ianbtaylor wrote:
| I recently started using this to sync a few folders full of some
| code and documents between three of my computers. So far, it
| works very nicely, to the point I don't think about which machine
| I sit down at, because I know it'll already have the stuff I'm
| working on, all ready to go, without any fussing around or
| needing to running `git pull` in a bunch of different folders to
| get caught up to where I left off. I like that there's no cloud
| dependency and no single point of failure.
| poisonborz wrote:
| 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 powerful
| configuration options are hard to decipher after some time
|
| - The project could start a (freemium?) cloud client option,
| maybe leveraging other providers for storage. Most people will
| not be able to set up a server, and without that it's just way
| less practical for the layman than any mainstream option.
| rkagerer wrote:
| _Sometimes long-deleted folders pop up when older version
| clients connect_
|
| What causes that?
| j1elo wrote:
| Add to that:
|
| - The handling of ignored files is confusing, to say the least.
|
| I happened to comment about it just some day ago, so to not
| repeat the comment ->
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28760365
| pacifika wrote:
| It refused a few files with unusual characters in their file
| name, so you'll want to periodically check the logs, as it is
| stricter than the host OS. Apart from that, all good
| fretn wrote:
| Do you happen to have a list of these unusual characters ?
| Tor3 wrote:
| It seems to be anything which isn't either ASCII or UTF-8. My
| father's PC had files written by old versions of OpenOffice
| (when it was called StarOffice), with "native" names but
| before his PC was set up to use UTF-8. Early versions of
| Syncthing didn't have problems with those files, but later
| versions refused to back them up. I had to rename all those
| files one by one to get it working again.
| nickcw wrote:
| If you ever have to do to this again checkout convmv - this
| can convert for example latin1 encoded file names into utf8
| encoded file names.
| 12ian34 wrote:
| wish I'd known about this sooner - thanks
| tavish1 wrote:
| I really like syncthing. I mainly use it for syncing
| passwordstore directory and a few other small files that I like
| having synced. Once set up, I basically forget about it, unless I
| have to go check why this password is the old one, and in this
| case it is usually android killing syncthing due to low power
| more or something, which requires me to manually restart it.
| bsdubernerd wrote:
| 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, dozens of minutes if
| not. Not usable for this purpose.
|
| The android client is also not very well thought out. You cannot
| "share to syncthing" until it's active, so if you want to put a
| file for sharing until your network connectivity is up, you
| can't. You have to start it, share, then shut it down. If you
| want to do that on an unknown network you didn't whitelist, you
| have to whitelist the network as well. Kind of pointless. You'd
| think you can also start it when it prompts you to change the
| settings, but this also doesn't work.
|
| I ended up disabling all these advanced settings, as they clearly
| end-up being an hindrance. I just start it manually and quit it,
| kind of defeating the entire purpose of them.
| inside_out_life wrote:
| for fast occasional sharing you have KDEConnect
| bsdubernerd wrote:
| I don't see a command-line or daemon backend. Not really
| comparable, even if I happened to use kde.
| snvzz wrote:
| Not a fan[0].
|
| [0]:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20210226183330/https://www.gkaya...
| commoner wrote:
| That's a tragic incident. However, it doesn't look like the
| author enabled file versioning in Syncthing, which would have
| retained a copy of all of the deleted files on the computer:
|
| https://docs.syncthing.net/users/versioning.html
| reacharavindh wrote:
| I stopped taking them seriously when they wrote - " I saw that
| it complained that the .stfolders did not exist. So I went
| ahead and created them, but by mistake, I created empty text
| files instead of empty folders. Did not realise it and left it
| to work in the background."
|
| First, backups! Never trust any software to not have a bug.
|
| Secondly, if you don't know what you are doing, may be don't
| create random config files and hope the software deals with it.
| That's in the "neither power user, nor dumb user" category that
| most software will not be designed for.
| nuerow wrote:
| > Secondly, if you don't know what you are doing, may be
| don't create random config files and hope the software deals
| with it.
|
| This sounds like a variant of the old "you're holding it
| wrong" blurb.
|
| The problem you're commenting on actually describe a
| multitude of problems with the application, specially how it
| causes data loss if it's config happens to get corrupted.
|
| The comment about the need to back up data also seems to not
| take into account that the service is already used to back up
| data across multiple devices.
| phil-martin wrote:
| It may have already been used as a backup system, but it
| was not made for that, and they even answered that in their
| FAQ. It was this question that stopped me setting it up,
| because it made me realise I was after a backup solution,
| not just a synchronisation tool
|
| " Is Syncthing my ideal backup application?
|
| No. Syncthing is not a great backup application because all
| changes to your files (modifications, deletions, etc.) will
| be propagated to all your devices. You can enable
| versioning, but we encourage you to use other tools to keep
| your data safe from your (or our) mistakes. "
|
| https://docs.syncthing.net/users/faq.html#is-syncthing-my-
| id...
| jiggunjer wrote:
| this is why I prefer the 'conservational' sync option
| from Google. If you delete a file it prompts you if you
| also want to delete remotely. Sure, it doesn't prevent
| bad overwrites but that's what git is for.
| reacharavindh wrote:
| No, I wasn't saying the thing about creating config files
| in the same vein as "you are holding it wrong^tm". Any
| software would crap out if you manually give it wrong/empty
| config files - that is only reasonable. Sure, if you're
| worried about the config file getting corrupted without
| user interference, that's a bug. I'd also be pissed if I
| were the author of the project and someone complained by
| saying - "I deleted the config file your software uses, and
| I am not a fan of your software because it doesn't
| magically heal itself and protect against users such as
| myself".
|
| No! Syncthing is _not_ a backup system. They explicitly say
| so, and it should also be obvious that a "syncing system"
| may try to backup some stuff, but you cannot rely on
| anything that can _delete_ stuff to be called a backup.
| deaddabe wrote:
| I have switched from Nextcloud to Syncthing. The former was a
| resource hog that was eating up too much everything on my modest
| VPS.
|
| I share the files on my local network at home between phone,
| laptop and desktop. My only issues so far:
|
| - I need to manually start Syncthing on the devices, whereas
| Nextcloud was always running on boot. Not sure if I should start
| it every time, especially on the Android phone which cannot sync
| while away from home. I do not want to empty the battery while
| outside of my LAN, + the persistent notification "Syncthing is
| running" is annoying.
|
| - I need to power up at least the laptop or desktop to backup my
| phone data. One solution that I will try is to install a headless
| Syncthing instance on my NAS. This way the phone can always sync
| to the NAS every time, and then laptop/desktop can sync from NAS
| when needed.
|
| The joys of peer2peer! At least, I am sure that my moderately
| sensitive files are not leaving my local network to be stored on
| my VPS, which can be hacked someday.
|
| I also need to figure out how to install Wireguard on my router
| to allow to access my NAS from my phone while on a trip, but
| that's another story.
| Daegalus wrote:
| try out Synctrayzor for the laptop and desktop. it lets you set
| it to auto start on boot.
| deaddabe wrote:
| Thanks for the suggestion. This is an app for Windows [0] but
| everything I use is Linux, so the setup to start SyncThing it
| at boot should be straightforward.
|
| I am more worried about the Android part. The best solution
| would be to start SyncThing when on my LAN via matching SSID,
| and disable it when I am out of range.
|
| [0] https://github.com/canton7/SyncTrayzor
| Daegalus wrote:
| Honestly, that my bad, I didn't check before suggesting it
| and had it in my head it was cross platform.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| Syncthing Fork has this feature, and others enhancements
| [0].
|
| [0] https://github.com/Catfriend1/syncthing-android-fdroid
| TheFreim wrote:
| > One solution that I will try is to install a headless
| Syncthing instance on my NAS
|
| I've got an old computer which I run things on occasionally. I
| installed syncthing on it for a while and it worked well.
| Stopped leaving that computer on so now when there's something
| that needs to be synced between my desktop and laptop I just
| use my phone as the middle always on server.
| j1elo wrote:
| > _[Nextcloud] was a resource hog that was eating up too much
| everything on my modest VPS._
|
| I've seen comments like this in multiple occasions. Is it
| really _that_ bad? I guess if there was a flagrant performance
| bug, it would have been sorted out with time, so the only
| remaining explanation is that the code is really poorly laid
| out, or with design flaws that cause so many performance
| problems for users.
|
| However next to each "it's a resource hog" there is always
| another comment saying "it works fantastically well", so I
| never know what to think (sort of trying it myself, but I'm not
| _that_ interested in the issue)
| gpvos wrote:
| The hogged resource for me is disk space. The more recent
| versions are bundling more and more features like a web-based
| word processor etc. that are just useless baggage for me. (I
| do like the calendar and contact sync.) I have a small hosted
| site with a tiny personal Nextcloud instance, just for
| sharing a handful of files, plus a small Wordpress site, and
| I had to upgrade from 500 MB to 1 GB to fit it in and also be
| able to run the upgrader.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| I tried both and stayed with Nextcloud because of some
| features (especially sharing and specifically private links).
|
| I have a ~5 years old server (Intel Skylake, 8 GB RAM) on
| which I run a bunch od docker containers (about 30). One of
| them is Nextcloud and the load average is 0.8-1.0. This is
| for an average of 2 users (me and the rest of my family that
| in total uses the server as I do myself).
|
| Not a very scientific comparison, but I never had any
| performance issues.
| MaXtreeM wrote:
| The Nextcloud Windows desktop client is very poorly written.
| We needed an in-house file hosting solution to replace really
| old Samba shares and Nextcloud seemed like a great option
| because we also were looking for a non-Google alternative to
| Google Docs/Drive (one of our clients has anti-Google
| policy).
|
| After moving all files to Nextcloud server everyone (company
| of 20+ people) installed Nextcloud Windows Desktop client and
| connected to it with only virtual files option set (nothing
| is transfered until opened/edited). The initial "sync" after
| first seup took about 2-3 days to complete for everyone.
| Reason? Probably too many small files. The share contained
| about 300+GB of data in around 500k files (not sure about
| that number only a guess). Nextcloud checks _every single
| file_ with server which computes hash for it which is stored
| locally. You can find threads on their community forum or
| reddit by people experiencing same slow behavior when they
| have a lot of small files. There were some promises from devs
| to resolve it with the latest client update but we didn 't
| verify it yet.
| Maakuth wrote:
| I've dealt with the Android issue by configuring Syncthing to
| only run when the phone is charging. I'm in the habit of
| leaving my phone to charger every night anyway, so I'm
| regularly synced. It would be great if there would be a 'Sync
| now' function though, that would run the sync and then go back
| to ordinary mode afterwards, for the rare case that I need my
| folder synced in the instant.
| raek wrote:
| 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 are logged in or not. (The default behavior
| makes more sense on desktop and laptop computers.)
| raek wrote:
| 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.
| deaddabe wrote:
| Thanks! I will use the enable-linger on the NAS running
| 24/7, and configure it using a remote browser (probably via
| SSH tunnel). This way I can always sync to NAS even if
| everything else is off, and the laptop/desktop will sync
| from the NAS when required.
| raek wrote:
| I saw just now that there are also system units (started
| with "systemctl enable --now
| syncthing@USER_NAME_HERE.service", note the lack of
| --user). If you use those then you don't need to activate
| linger. Using those is probably considered the more
| standard way of doing things on an unattended server.
| deaddabe wrote:
| Nice catch, this usecase seems common enough.
| jszymborski wrote:
| Supervisord also works really well for this purpose
| https://docs.syncthing.net/users/autostart.html#using-
| superv...
| colordrops wrote:
| 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.
| deaddabe wrote:
| 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
| jszymborski wrote:
| Baikal is also really nice and comes with a handy GUI
|
| https://sabre.io/baikal/
| commoner wrote:
| Another alternative for contact, calendar, and task syncing
| is EteSync, which is end-to-end encrypted:
|
| https://www.etesync.com
| deaddabe wrote:
| I access radicale via an nginx proxy with proper HTTPS
| (LetsEncrypt) and an HTPASSWD over that, so the setup is
| secure. However radicale default setup is not secure, I
| agree.
| commoner wrote:
| Radicale is a great FOSS solution for syncing via the
| CardDAV and CalDAV protocols. I simply prefer using end-
| to-end encryption for extra protection where possible,
| which is why I think EteSync is a good alternative. E2EE
| means that even if the server is compromised, my
| contacts, calendars, and tasks won't be.
| uhtred wrote:
| If you just need to access your NAS from outside your home
| network so your phone can syncthing to it, you can use
| syncthing in global mode -- it will use public relay servers to
| sync between phone and NAS. But maybe you need more than that /
| knew this already.
| francis-io wrote:
| With Android 11, I think this breaks my use case. Android 11
| apps, with a few exceptions, can only access files they create.
| You can add in a "grant all" access, but google limits that to
| certain apps, like file sharing apps.
|
| My use case is I want to "de-cloud" my life, and use syncthing to
| push things like wireguard keys to my phone, along with backing
| up photos and pushing down audiobooks and music. I bought a
| fairphone 3+ with the idea of it being a forever phone, but I
| couldn't get things working on liniageOS 11 or /e/ os on android
| 11. I could stay on android 10, but things will eventually
| migrate to target the new SDK.
|
| I also have the issue with syncthing not being able to write to
| an external SD card, which was one of the selling points for me
| for the Fairphone.
|
| I would love a solution to this, because I'm really stuck in the
| water on this.
| commoner wrote:
| I don't think the changes in Android 11 are catastrophic. I'm
| using Syncthing on Android 11, and Syncthing can read/write to
| any directory in the filesystem under /sdcard, with the
| exception of the /sdcard/Android/data directory (private app
| data). Syncthing does request the "All files access" permission
| that gives it access to most of the filesystem.
|
| I'm not sure about external SD cards, though, since I haven't
| tested this.
| zibzab wrote:
| What if you use termux and backup from its storage?
| dspillett wrote:
| Since recent Android updates my termux setup hasn't been able
| to access other application's data. I use rsync via that for
| backing up content, it still works for things like camera
| output, but not things like the files & config from my
| podcast app.
|
| Though it turns out I've been negligent and not noticed the
| Play installed versions are no longer maintained, so they may
| have worked around whatever the issue is. I must get around
| to reinstalling via f-droid...
| laurentlbm wrote:
| I can confirm that the F-Droid version has fixed this issue
| a while ago.
| therealmarv wrote:
| Maybe I'm not reading it right but I've Android 11 and can see
| with my gallery app all image files saved to sdcard from all
| sorts of programs which contradicts your statement. There is
| still a lot of shared space on the file system.
|
| It's a good thing in general that other apps cannot access
| other's app internal files.
| rglullis wrote:
| I'm not an Android dev, but IIUIC your photos and images are
| made accessible to the gallery app through the
| ContentProvider API, i.e it does not have direct access.
| iforgotpassword wrote:
| I wouldn't expect apps to require android 11 anytime soon
| (years). Android 4.4 was supported forever. Things get ugly
| when 10 doesn't receive any updates anymore.
|
| But even with the versions before 11 things were a chore with
| many vendors putting aggressive power saving features in their
| phones that are hard if not impossible to disable for some
| chinese brands, sometimes the app not restarting after the app
| store pushed an update, etcpp.
|
| I tried to de-cloud my dad with it, but eventually the app
| would stop running for some reason after a few days or weeks
| and nothing would get synched. Because otherwise, the technical
| foundation, especially the nat traversal is superb. I ran a
| mini pc in his home with ST that would receive all the photos
| from the phone. Zero maintenance, no port forwardings that I
| would have to re-do if the provider switches routers or the
| settings reset or what not, no dyndns for reachability. He was
| travelling in thailand, vietnam and elsewhere and the pictures
| just kept coming in. A reliable version of PhotoSync that uses
| the syncthing protocol under the hood would freaking kill it.
| raman162 wrote:
| Syncthing is really amazing, I have been using it for nearly two
| years to sync notes on all of my device; three laptops, one iPad,
| raspberry pi and a pixel 2. The most difficult thing was finding
| a solution to work on the iPad, ended up having to use an app to
| remotely access and edit files on my raspberry pi, it's kinda
| clunky but gets the job done.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| 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 Android to keep my 'camera roll' synced to my
| desktop. I preferred setting the ignore file to exclude android's
| thumbnails directory, but otherwise it worked great. I'd take a
| photo with my phone and almost before I could open the shortcut
| on the desktop, boom, the photo was there, since the android
| client detects changes in the filesystem.
|
| I also used it to sync my password database, and a cross-platform
| notebook app's database. Worked flawlessly for all of them.
|
| Ditto for a folder shared between my MacOS laptop and Windows
| desktop.
|
| Lots of controls, especially in the forked android client. Don't
| want the sync client to run on any network other than your home
| network? Done. Don't want your syncthing clients to try and do
| NAT transversal / discovery outside whatever network it's on? No
| problem.
|
| The biggest bummer is that there's no iOS client. Had to switch
| to Nextcloud, which _so far_ has been working OK, but the number
| of people that have problems with the iOS client is quite high
| (problems such as syncs being so slow it takes days to sync a
| camera roll), and it 's generally sluggish and doesn't work in
| the background (yes, I know, Apple's fault.) However, Nextcloud
| does allow me to sync contacts and calendars (I think. I haven't
| tried to set it up yet.)
|
| One warning: Sycnthing _really_ does not like it when you delete
| the dotfile folder inside the shared folder(s). Don 't do that :)
| Reventlov wrote:
| 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, yet, this is one of the few sync app that work for
| me, even behind NAT, with closed ports, and so on.
| spicybright wrote:
| 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?
| bipson wrote:
| The first thing I really like about syncthing is that it does
| what it is supposed to do very well (besides very seldom
| glitches), while _not_ being dropbox, nextcloud, owncloud,
| etc. but p2p and entirely independent of any external tools
| /devices/etc.
|
| The second thing I like is that it is a _successful_ FOSS
| project, meaning it _works_ and is being regularly and often
| improved by its users.
|
| Your comment, as helpful as you may feel it is, is
| contradictory to my second - very strong - feeling.
|
| I _really_ think to UI works quite good, and by god, if a
| better solution is so obvious to you, why haven 't you
| proposed it yet, or - god forbid - made a merge/pull
| request??
| dolni wrote:
| > and by god, if a better solution is so obvious to you,
| why haven't you proposed it yet, or - god forbid - made a
| merge/pull request??
|
| Because there isn't any obligation to? Why do you think you
| would be entitled to ask for that?
| djbusby wrote:
| Aren't they just suggesting to open a bug/issue in place
| of complaining on HN? Seems a fair, small ask to me.
| dolni wrote:
| There is a discussion being had. This guy was sharing his
| opinion about syncthing. That still doesn't obligate him
| to open a bug or do any work for the project.
| mPReDiToR wrote:
| "Entitled to ask"?
|
| I think freedom of speech allows for it.
|
| Can I have a million pounds, from you personally, please?
|
| Also, that might be the small nudge which potentially has
| a user actually contribute in some circumstances.
|
| I'm not sure your question is fair.
| dolni wrote:
| Perhaps "entitled to ask" is a poor choice of words. Yes,
| freedom of speech allows bipson to ask about
| contributing. It still comes across as entitled. The
| question was clearly laden with some expectation that
| Reventlov should go do work for syncthing instead of
| sharing an opinion on Hacker News.
|
| We're just here having a conversation. The expectation
| that a user MUST do something for an open source project
| because they have an issue is a tired take. It's not as
| though Reventlov is blowing up Syncthing's development
| team with demands about how to make it better. And, for
| all any of us know, Reventlov may have already submitted
| PRs or opened issues for Syncthing. Or, it could be the
| case that there's a different piece of software suiting
| their needs better, and that's fine. Or, Reventlov maybe
| just doesn't possess the technical skill to contribute in
| that way. And that's okay too.
|
| Bludgeoning people with an open source virtue-stick for
| sharing an opinion isn't helpful.
| bipson wrote:
| Hmm, fair point.
|
| But just as much as you consider an "expectation that a
| user MUST do something for an open source project" is a
| tired point, I consider the endless ranting by entitled
| FOSS users an obnoxious trend.
|
| And btw. I never said something about "must", I asked why
| not choosing - OK, maybe strongly suggesting - another
| option.
|
| Maybe you took my question the wrong way, but (maybe just
| as much misguided) I took the "opinion"/"discussion" not
| as opinion, but for the lack of any helpful suggestion as
| merely a rant.
|
| I was raised not to needlessly complain about free
| things, without considering to take things into my own
| hands.
|
| And even if you don't know how to code, suggestions and
| discussions are better had in an issue tracker, right?
| Otherwise, what's the point?
|
| If one is not a user, and considers something else to be
| better, why voice such a strong opinion?
| dolni wrote:
| > I consider the endless ranting by entitled FOSS users
| an obnoxious trend.
|
| There is a massive difference between voicing your
| opinion about something in a public discussion forum and
| hounding the developers of a project because they don't
| fix bugs or implement new features on your say-so. One of
| those is making conversation, the other is entitlement.
|
| > Maybe you took my question the wrong way, but (maybe
| just as much misguided) I took the "opinion"/"discussion"
| not as opinion, but for the lack of any helpful
| suggestion as merely a rant.
|
| Sometimes, you can recognize that something is bad
| without knowing the best way to fix it.
|
| > I was raised not to needlessly complain about free
| things, without considering to take things into my own
| hands.
|
| Okay, so that was how you were raised and how you
| operate. I don't see the reply as needless complaining.
| It is a critique of some specific issues. It was
| constructive criticism, because it presented a specific
| set of things that could be improved upon. I happen to
| agree with those criticisms, even though I generally
| think Syncthing is a great piece of software.
|
| > And even if you don't know how to code, suggestions and
| discussions are better had in an issue tracker, right?
| Otherwise, what's the point?
|
| What's the point that any of us are here talking about
| anything?
|
| > If one is not a user, and considers something else to
| be better, why voice such a strong opinion?
|
| Because people make conversation and have opinions. Are
| you familiar with socializing? It's okay to not like
| something. It's okay to not like _parts_ of something.
| hparadiz wrote:
| The thing with the .stfolder file is annoying as hell. I use it
| to sync the build output folder for my Android builds but
| sometimes I need to run a clean and it wipes out the folder.
| Syncthing's developers for whatever reason just can't seem to
| grasp that sometimes I could careless about a folder's history
| and just need my files synced.
|
| My fix it to run `touch .stfolder` in the build directory which
| fixes it but seriously Syncthing? Just put in some reasonable
| defaults and call it a day.
|
| Otherwise it's perfectly fine.
| HKH2 wrote:
| If you put a non-empty placeholder file in that folder, it
| won't be empty any more, so it shouldn't be removed.
| hparadiz wrote:
| 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 customer and
| asked for this the engineers would just figure something
| out instead of making excuses for why it is the way it is.
| HKH2 wrote:
| > The clean from gradle deletes the folder entirely and
| creates a new one in it's place.
|
| That's really bizarre behavior. If the folder has no
| files or zero byte files then it might make sense, but if
| gradle's deleting non-empty files that don't concern it,
| that seems to be more of a problem with gradle.
|
| I get the point though; if there's no versioning, why
| bother having an empty folder?
| pjc50 wrote:
| > The clean from gradle deletes the folder entirely and
| creates a new one in it's place.
|
| Maybe it's possible to .. not do that?
| hparadiz wrote:
| You expect me to not use a basic feature of a compiler?
|
| o_O weird take but k
| pjc50 wrote:
| If a build system produces an adverse outcome, it is
| often possible to customize it so that it does not delete
| things which you would rather not have deleted. (I've no
| idea whether this is specifically easy or not in gradle)
| libeclipse wrote:
| It's easy to open a pull request instead of complaining
| j1elo wrote:
| 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.
| hparadiz wrote:
| It's also kind of arrogant of FOSS advocates to say "just
| make a pull request" whenever there's criticism of
| anything FOSS. You could spend weeks working on something
| only to have the maintainer say no and I've seen this
| happen and every time it does I just think to myself
| "welp there's another person who will never make another
| pull request again".
| libeclipse wrote:
| Then fork it? No one is stopping you.
|
| I assume you don't care about missing out on updates
| since that's the free work you're complaining about
| j1elo wrote:
| As a FOSS maintainer I always try to make it clear that
| before trying your luck with a PR, you should always
| first engange in a conversation with me.
|
| Seems kind of obvious to my eyes, asking, talking,
| discussing about some change before doing the actual
| work. But as it seems, "obviousness" is in the eye of the
| beholder...
| hparadiz wrote:
| That's fine and all except that the typical refrain from
| internet folks is that if something is free then you are
| not allowed to critique, comment, or request changes. If
| you really care about freedom you can handle a little bit
| of online banter.
| libeclipse wrote:
| No one is saying you're not allowed to critique the
| software. You're critiquing the _people_ who _create_
| that software _for free_
| grandchild wrote:
| yes the .stfolder is a minor nuisance most of the time, but
| it's a lifesaver if for some reason or other your folder gets
| removed or a mounted device is no longer there, or one of a
| hundred other things that can go wrong with a folder.
|
| then you _really_ want syncthing to stand back and hold its
| hands up, instead of syncing deletion events to all connected
| devices or sending all your friends your entire home
| directory or something like this.
|
| imo, it's a good safety tradeoff, and like so many of those
| (e.g. short vs long passwords) they might seem annoying most
| of the time, but prevent incredible damage that _one_ other
| time.
| hparadiz wrote:
| I understand all these things because I've done this
| professionally for quite some time. However I've just
| explained that this is my build directory which means it
| can be deleted and I won't care. Every build quite
| literally overwrites all the output files so it's
| destructive by it's very nature. Syncthing already has an
| option where it won't sync deletes as well. I just don't
| understand why it must absolutely have an stfolder path.
| There should be a destructive sync option where it won't
| care and will just sync.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| I suggest you put your build folder inside a synced
| folder, instead of syncing the build folder directly.
| [deleted]
| vegai_ wrote:
| >The biggest bummer is that there's no iOS client.
|
| https://www.mobiussync.com/
| Fiahil wrote:
| Not available in my region, sadly
| gregoriol wrote:
| Same here in Europe, wtf?
| oauea wrote:
| Odd, it appears to be create by a London-based company:
| https://www.pickupinfinity.com/about-us/
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| 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 this shit up to date?", and then my password manager
| opens the file. I don't have to worry myself about background
| sync and such.
|
| I didn't have to do jack shit to open the database the first
| time; the built-in iOS file-picker that came up let me select
| nextcloud as a source, and then my password database. Done.
| It is two taps to get that database open now - one to hit
| "passwords" in the keyboard area, and the second is me
| TouchID'ing to unlock the database.
|
| Looking over the Mobius faq, it appears to be vastly
| inferior, with no guarantee your files are synced at any
| point in time, and you have to manually push files from
| Mobius to Files, and then access them in apps from there:
|
| > iOS apps cannot access each others' files. This means you
| will need to copy files in and out of Syncthing using the
| Apple Files app.
|
| I wouldn't do that even if the software was free. And they
| want me to pay for that? No?
| pmontra wrote:
| I sometimes have the same problem with Android apps that
| store their files into their private folders, protected by
| the OS. I can't use Syncthing to backup those files to my
| computer. Either the app lets me configure the storage
| location to something that the other apps can access or I
| uninstall it and use a different app that lets me do that.
| If the OS gets into the way of what I want to do, oh well,
| that's one of the reasons why I'm using Android and not
| iOS. Android gets in the way but not at much as iOS seems
| to do.
|
| A better way should be creating a whitelist of apps that
| can access the storage of other apps. Gpx tracker app? Add
| Syncthing to its whitelist, and the file manager I use
| instead of the system one.
| rkagerer wrote:
| _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.
| oauea wrote:
| 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!
| Normal_gaussian wrote:
| You can't publish your own competing app. The desired
| behaviour requires running a background service (not
| allowed) that watches arbitrary folders (not allowed).
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Third party iOS apps do in fact have access to background
| tasks. There's even a variant dedicated to longer-running
| tasks, like lengthy file syncs.
|
| The difference is that instead of having an ever-running
| daemon, the developer schedules tasks with the system,
| and system decides when to run them based on network
| availability, battery charge, etc as well as the app's
| behavior (badly written/inefficient background tasks and
| frequent high intensity task requests are penalized).
| willis936 wrote:
| I guess I'll just have to pay $49.99 a year for iCloud!
|
| Why isn't this a lawsuit yet?
| squinta wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_neutrality
| spicybright wrote:
| 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?
| vagrantJin wrote:
| > _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.
| marcellus23 wrote:
| There are cars where you can change the built-in sat nav?
| Normal_gaussian wrote:
| Nearly all of them. Changing the media center is a well
| sypported third party customisation for most vehicles.
| willis936 wrote:
| For engaging in anti-competitive behavior. Forcing a
| single App Store on an os is much less draconian than
| offering a broken interface to basic OS functionality in
| order to prop your own product above others. Imagine if
| Windows downclocked whenever you wanted to use an office
| alternative. This is not much different.
| chmsky00 wrote:
| Be the change you want to see in the world.
| marcellus23 wrote:
| Because you can buy an android device?
| marcellus23 wrote:
| I think you lost the plot - you can publish a competing
| app that uses the Files app for sync, just like NextCloud
| does.
| Normal_gaussian wrote:
| That is a somewhat combative thing to say.
|
| We see a NextCloud dev explaining that background uploads
| don't work
| herehttps://github.com/nextcloud/ios/issues/215
|
| And we can see syncthing devs lamenting the many issues
| with an iOS client here
| https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/issues/102
|
| It may be the case that file eventing now works, but a
| quick check with an iOS dev friend suggests that the
| filesystem sandboxing is too restrictive to be meaningful
| anyway.
|
| Further on this issue, consider that a functioning
| syncthing client is a node in a p2p network, so must be
| able to advertise and listen to requests in the
| background _as well_ as the background jobs that
| NextCloud requires (as NextCloud is centralised it doesn
| 't need node level co-ordination) - so a partially
| working NextCloud client is good enough, but a partially
| working Syncthing client is woefully broken.
| marcellus23 wrote:
| $99/year is hardly exorbitant.
| withinboredom wrote:
| Plus ~30% of your revenue.
| marcellus23 wrote:
| correction: 30% of your revenue for certain business
| models. Still too much, but let's at least be somewhat
| accurate. Plenty of apps make tons of money on the App
| Store without every paying a dime to Apple beyond the
| $99.
| withinboredom wrote:
| Perhaps you missed the ~
| Tomte wrote:
| Second this.
|
| Works flawlessly, is rather cheap, and the developers
| encourage donations to the main SyncThing project.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| How is "you have to manually copy files around every time
| you want to use them" "works flawlessly"? Have you not seen
| how stuff is supposed to work with cloud storage providers
| in iOS? Because it's indistinguishable in function from
| local on-device storage.
| Tomte wrote:
| My use cases may be simpler than yours, but I don't copy
| files around.
|
| I usually sync PDF and epub files to my iPad and open
| them directly from the sync folder in Apple Books.
| rob74 wrote:
| Maybe it works flawlessly inside the limitations that
| non-Apple iOS sync apps have?
| p2t2p wrote:
| Yes this. Best money I've ever spent on software
| goodpoint wrote:
| > The web UI is excellent
|
| The web UI is perhaps the only pain point of syncthing. It's
| very confusing around folder paths VS IDs, especially around
| the "Default Folder".
|
| Functions like Actions > Show ID are presented poorly.
|
| Importantly, the UI is not intuitive at all. You need to read
| the docs to understand what you are supposed to do.
| stiltzkin wrote:
| To add there is also Syncthing for Android TV, makes so much
| easier transfering files between devices, like to a seedbox.
| cynod wrote:
| Oh really? Didn't know that.. very handy!
| makeworld wrote:
| > _Lots of controls, especially in the forked android client._
|
| Here's that fork: https://github.com/Catfriend1/syncthing-
| android
|
| You can also search up Syncthing-Fork on Google Play.
| fps_doug wrote:
| Yes that was annoying to me at first. The official client
| seems to still get updates, so you don't immediately see
| anything wrong with it, but has a couple really annoying
| issues that have been fixed in Syncthing-fork for years.
| alias_neo wrote:
| I tried Syncthing, then I tried Nextcloud, and for the goal of
| just syncing camera roll and backing up my password manager,
| they were both a bit of a hassle.
|
| Now I use Minio with FolderSync (Android App, I use the paid
| one, but the free is perfectly capable) to backup my camera
| roll and I wrote a very simply WebDAV server in Go to backup my
| (Android) password manager DB which only supports WebDAV, I sit
| NGINX in front of them both to terminate TLS and to handle
| basic auth for the WebDAV server, though I could easily
| implement basic auth in that too (again, my password manager
| only supports basic auth).
|
| If someone can suggest a better password manager for Android
| with a good UI, good integration (e.g. auto-fill), has a Linux
| desktop app and can backup to WebDAV or Minio I'd jump in a
| heartbeat.
|
| I considered Bitwarden, but I don't want to run the
| Mono/Windows server container, and I don't want to rely on the
| Rust port which is behind in features and is susceptible to the
| upstream breaking APIs.
| rjzzleep wrote:
| Keepass2Android/KeepassDX with Nextcloud? I don't understand
| how running Minio with a custom built webdav server is easier
| than Nextcloud has integrated WebDAV access.
| alias_neo wrote:
| I used to run Nextcloud. Nextcloud did a bunch of stuff I
| didn't need, is a larger attack vector and usually took an
| entire afternoon/evening every time I needed to do an
| upgrade. So far I spent less time setting all this up, and
| writing a WebDAV server than any one upgrade of Nextcloud
| took me.
|
| Minio is zero-maintenance, if it needs an upgrade I just
| pull a newer Docker image. My WebDAV server is fewer than
| 100 lines of Go and extremely easy to maintain.
| chrisdhal wrote:
| I run Nextcloud in a docker image (on unRaid). Upgrades
| are a docker pull away too, never had any issues.
|
| I use Nextcloud on my phone (Android) to backup my camera
| too, the automatic sync is wonderful and works well. It
| does stuff I don't need too, but it's pretty easy to use
| and setup and it integrates well with the OS (Windows and
| Mac at least).
| antman wrote:
| My iOS Nextcloud is stealthily paused when in the background (a
| few kb/s e.g. just enough for notices) as I think most iphone
| apps. So it is not competitive with apple backuo.
| aborsy wrote:
| A couple of questions.
|
| * Is there an iOS app on agenda?
|
| * Can I choose something like S3 or even Dropbox (yes!) to be a
| central server (more precisely a peer)?
| commoner wrote:
| * There doesn't seem to be much progress on an official iOS
| app, but it is something that users are asking for.[1] An
| unofficial closed source app called Mobius Sync does exist for
| iOS.[2]
|
| * S3 and Dropbox are not officially supported,[3] but you can
| always sync one of your Syncthing nodes to cloud storage on
| your own.[4]
|
| [1] https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/issues/102
|
| [2] https://www.mobiussync.com
|
| [3] https://forum.syncthing.net/t/how-to-sync-files-with-
| aws-s3-...
|
| [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18135903
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| ...the whole point of syncthing is that you avoid "the cloud"
| and all its privacy nightmares. I'm baffled people do this.
| heinrichhartman wrote:
| off-site backup?
| aborsy wrote:
| That's why I put "yes" in parenthesis.
|
| Synchting supports end to end encryption. So you can use
| cloud storage with encrypted folder, for connectivity (no
| need for relays NAT traversal etc). Clients sync through an
| always-on peer.
| miki123211 wrote:
| I have to pitch Resilio Sync (formerly Bittorrent Sync) here.
|
| It's a proprietary, more polished alternative that offers a
| freeware license for personal use.
|
| My biggest issue with Syncthing was that there was no auto-
| discovery, if you had 25 or so computers across a group of
| friends, you needed to set up 25^2 connections, which wasn't
| really feasible. Not sure if this is still a thing, but Resilio
| solves this perfectly, you just input a secret key and computers
| just connect automatically. The developers also provide turn
| servers, which is useful in restrictive NAT scenarios. End-to-end
| encryption is supported, both in the free and the pro versions,
| although the latter gives you much more control over who can do
| what to the folder.
|
| I use Resilio as a "big Dropbox" with dozens of gigabytes of data
| per folder, shared across a small-ish group of trusted friends.
| It doesn't cost us anything and works really well.
|
| The largest folders I've seen had over a terabyte of data in
| them, but you probably want the pro version (with selective sync)
| for those.
| lamontcg wrote:
| Used Resilio for a long time and it would constantly start to
| beachball on my Macs. Syncthing has been pretty flawless by
| comparison.
| MikusR wrote:
| Syncthing has been end-to-end encrypted for years. And now also
| supports encrypted at rest.
| alexktz wrote:
| +1 for Resilio Sync. Purchased a license 7 years ago and it
| still works today - how refreshing is that?
|
| Lots of people love Syncthing and that is great for them, but
| I've always found btsync to be easier to use.
| withinboredom wrote:
| You know btsync is just reskinned IPFS.
| fps_doug wrote:
| Syncthing supports introducer devices. If you mark a device as
| introducer, you'll automatically add all devices the introducer
| knows to your list. So basically adding a new device to an
| existing group requires everyone to agree on one introducer,
| and everyone will add the new device automatically.
|
| NAT traversal and relay servers exist too. So seems it's pretty
| much on par with Resilio, plus open source.
| miki123211 wrote:
| For my specific use case, there's probably no device that
| could be an introducer.
|
| It's all PCs, none of them online 24/7.
|
| Besides, setting all that up requires way more technical
| knowledge than most people have. Sure, I could do it I guess,
| but explaining Resilio configuration to complete non-techies
| is hard enough.
| xvector wrote:
| Lack of an iOS app is a dealbreaker.
| 12ian34 wrote:
| Switching to Android, then?!
| harvie wrote:
| What about https://www.syncany.org/ It seems to be abandoned, but
| i really like the idea about using arbitrary storage for
| bidirectional sync. Eg.: use any SSH (SFTP) server as a dropbox
| alternative.
| bedros wrote:
| only if I can filter what to sync locally
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| https://www.google.com/search?q=syncthing+filter
| prirai wrote:
| Google, really.
| commoner wrote:
| Here's Syncthing's documentation on specifying files to ignore
| or include using the .stignore file:
|
| https://docs.syncthing.net/users/ignoring.html
|
| This also works in the web and Android clients, which expose
| .stignore through the "Ignore Patterns" setting.
| rg111 wrote:
| Yes you can.
| 8fingerlouie wrote:
| I used to be a user of both Syncthing and Resilio Sync, but i've
| replaced both with regular cloud storage with Cryptomator or
| rclone+crypt instead (Cryptomator for clients).
|
| It turns out that the power consumption of keeping redundant
| hardware running at home is about twice as high as just buying
| the same storage in the cloud, and then you need to figure in the
| cost of hardware as well.
|
| I.e. Microsoft Family 365 can be had for EUR60/year (with HUP),
| and offers 6x1TB OneDrive storage. With power at EUR0.44/kwh, you
| have a power budget of 15W before your home server costs more
| than the cloud offering.
| rglullis wrote:
| I run a NAS with syncthing and a dappnode at home. The dappnode
| runs Storj, which I allocated about 2TB. It is paying me now
| about 6EUR/month, which is barely enough to cover the
| electricity costs and the cost of the drive. It certainly
| hasn't helped to cover any of the cost from the NAS.
|
| Decentralized solutions are always going to be less cost-
| effective than central services. We still should do it anyway.
| Optimizing for cost is a mistake. It makes us overly dependent
| on the big companies. It makes us fragile and susceptible to
| any change in their terms.
| 8fingerlouie wrote:
| > It makes us fragile and susceptible to any change in their
| terms.
|
| Which is why you should backup your data locally (or
| somewhere else), but even if self hosting, you should still
| have a backup of your data.
|
| I personally backup everything at home, and if/when their
| terms change, it's simply a matter of restoring data onto the
| new solution (local or remote), and i'm up and running again.
| rglullis wrote:
| Yes, of course. Syncthing is not a backup solution. Luckily
| the amount of data that I have that is considered private
| and valuable is not that much (~100GB of family photos and
| videos, some scanned documents) so my backup strategy has
| been good old SneakerNet. I have a couple of thumb drives
| that I leave with family, and occasionally get them back to
| check/refresh.
| 8fingerlouie wrote:
| I keep my data in the cloud, a local (versioned) backup,
| and for irreplaceable data like photos, i also burn
| identical M-disc media at least every year. One stored at
| home, another in a remote location.
|
| While i will probably have worse problems to deal with in
| case the cloud disappears and my local data is gone as
| well, chances are that once those are solved, my family
| photos will not be a problem after those :)
| rglullis wrote:
| I think for me the original comment was not just about
| the _data_ , it was also about "what if the cloud
| disappears".
|
| Financially, it might make sense to pay MS a few bucks an
| year for a service. Philosophically, the idea is much
| harder to stomach.
|
| I am far from being a card-carrying member of
| /r/datahoarder, but I don't like the idea of supporting
| (much less depending on) streaming services, and I would
| pay for a subscription service _if_ it was based on open
| source.
| flipbrad wrote:
| I use far less than 15W using an old laptop or RasPi their cost
| is negligible over their useful lifetime
| 8fingerlouie wrote:
| The 15W doesn't account for hardware. As soon as you add in
| hardware (and redundancy), you're looking at a lower budget.
|
| If i was to self host something similar, i would use a server
| (could be RPi4) with a set of 2x6TB drives in RAID1(for
| availability), and a remote backup somewhere (so another 6TB
| drive). The hardware cost of a single 6TB (Seagate Ironwolf
| 6TB, EUR202 at Amazon) harddrive could pay for 3 years of
| Family 365.
|
| So we're looking at 6 years of Family 365 to buy the
| harddrives alone (and 9 months more if you buy a RPi 4). I'm
| not counting the backup drive as you'll need that as well
| even if running in the cloud.
|
| Assuming a lifespan of 5 years, and an operating power of 5W
| average, you're looking at 44 KWh per harddrive per year, so
| 2x44x5 = 440 KWh over 5 years, or EUR194 (at EUR0.44/KWh).
|
| So the total cost of running your own setup over 5 years
| would be:
|
| EUR404 2 x 6TB harddrives
|
| EUR194 power consumption (not counting server power)
|
| Thats EUR598 for 5 years, or EUR119.5 per year, and that's
| also assuming no hardware breaks down.
|
| Compare that to the EUR60 that Family 365 costs per year.
| rkagerer wrote:
| 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?
| OriginalPenguin wrote:
| If you want to set it just for syncthing, just type this when
| you run it from the command line:
|
| GOMAXPROCS=2 syncthing
| hparadiz wrote:
| It's a GO runtime setting. Has nothing to do with Syncthing.
| rkagerer wrote:
| I'm not a Go programmer, but couldn't they achieve the same
| thing without name collision by reading a custom environment
| variable at startup and setting runtime.GOMAXPROCS?
| vetinari wrote:
| Why would they do it?
|
| This setting is managed by Go runtime, and Go runtime
| defines a specific env var for customization. If you want
| different setting for different Go programs, no problem, it
| is not a global config, but per process, so set the env var
| to desired value only for syncthing process.
| yarcob wrote:
| If you would use that variable, you wouldn't set it globally.
| You would set it only for the syncthing process.
|
| For example, when you use systemd to run syncthing, you can
| configure the environment for syncthing in the unit file.
|
| Other Go programs on your machine won't be affected.
| fps_doug wrote:
| > Are they using an environment variable shared by other Go
| prpgrams? Seems like bad practice...
|
| Huh? So only set it for syncthing.
| icheyne wrote:
| I could never get this to work on my home network. -\\_(tsu)_/-
| prirai wrote:
| You have to force it to use wlan or wireless. It solves the
| problem. Also, wait for a few moments for it to be able to
| detect your other device.
| mkl wrote:
| If you're using Windows, make sure Windows doesn't think your
| network is public. My dad's computers thought they were on a
| public network and so wouldn't see each other directly (they
| were syncing though, very slowly via an external relay).
| grandchild wrote:
| 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.
| SanchoPanda wrote:
| I would like to give a shout out to `unison` for syncing needs.
| It can be used with a daemon, but I use it happily with cron and
| it has been absolutely bulletproof* for years. I have never
| noticed it's resource usage at all after running the initial
| sync.
|
| I am never modifying the same file on two systems simultaneously,
| so I can afford to sync hourly with no issues. While not everyone
| can do this, I suspect many are in the same boat.
|
| * Try to use literally the exact same binary where architectures
| allow, due to build dependencies.
| raek wrote:
| 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
| solutions?
|
| Setting up a cron job / timer unit that commits the synced folder
| to a git repo is also an alternative, but has some disadvantages:
| stores contents twice (once in the sync folder, once in the git
| object database), and pruning older versions is difficult (git is
| mainly built to keep all history).
| hikarudo wrote:
| > 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 repo is also an alternative
|
| Another option would be to backup the synced folder using a
| backup tool like borg, restic, duplicacy etc. They have options
| to prune the snapshots.
| andrewaylett wrote:
| 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.
| Joeri wrote:
| 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.
| MikusR wrote:
| Syncthing has many options for versioning. Ability to keep
| versions of files is THE reason I use it.
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| https://docs.syncthing.net/users/faq.html?highlight=backup#i.
| ..
| MikusR wrote:
| https://docs.syncthing.net/users/versioning.html
| MightyOwl13 wrote:
| 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 concept of a "server"
| per say, but once I understood this and organized it in such a
| way that my server WOULD behave like a server, the rest was
| pretty easy.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5O4ajGWZz8
|
| And same url on an Invidious instance -
| https://yewtu.be/watch?v=O5O4ajGWZz8
| wingmanjd wrote:
| Lawrence Systems videos are great! I've learned so much from
| them and have implemented quite a few things at $WORK or home
| due to their videos.
| j1elo wrote:
| 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
| flanbiscuit wrote:
| 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.
| Disparallel wrote:
| 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.
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| >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.
| gnulinux wrote:
| Is there an obvious way to use this with rclone?
| jorislacance wrote:
| I guess it is more one or the other depending on the use case.
|
| I've been synchronizing local data to remote data using NFS and
| Syncthing for a while now instead of doing batches of rclone,
| if you were referring to this use case.
| stef25 wrote:
| What are you trying to do?
| ncphil wrote:
| ... I actually use rclone mount _instead_ of sync for cloud
| storage. Tried syncthing a long while ago after finding
| nextcloud unreliable. Then stumbled acrosss a comment somewhere
| that talked about the mount feature in rclone
| (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_mount/). This is probably
| only practical for me now because we've got a 1G/1G pipe to the
| Internet. On the internal network I'm back to using nfs mounts
| (or samba for the Windows machines). Syncthing is good, but
| over time I've found all sync solutions to fall short. For
| backups I use a combination of rsync to the file server on both
| Linux and Windows, and then rclone out to the cloud.
| qwertox wrote:
| This seems to rely on inotify which is not always triggered when
| files change when they are watched.
|
| In the following scenario realtime syncing would then fail
| silently:
|
| - You have a server A which contains files which you are editing.
|
| - You have setup realtime syncing between server A and a machine
| B.
|
| - On server A you have a Docker container which runs Samba and is
| hosting the directories of server A which contains the files you
| are editing.
|
| - You are editing those files on a machine where you mounted
| those shares. Upon saving, the files on server A would be
| modified, but inotify would not trigger and the file would not
| get synced to machine B.
| zufallsheld wrote:
| Did this happen to you?
|
| This seems like a very contrived example of a problem.
| qwertox wrote:
| It didn't happen with Syncthing because I'm not using it
| (yet!), but while trying to edit files normally which were
| watched by inotify.
|
| I'm kind of assuming that it's the containerization of Samba
| which is causing the problem, since I have not installed
| Samba directly on the server, but it could also be the case
| when not using Docker.
|
| Apparently any CIFS mount is affected
| https://lists.samba.org/archive/linux-cifs-
| client/2009-April...
| Tor3 wrote:
| Syncthing has two methods for detecting file changes: Watching
| (inotify), and Scanning. Both are enabled by default, with
| scanning once per hour (+/- a random element). Configurable per
| directory. https://docs.syncthing.net/users/syncing.html
| qwertox wrote:
| Excellent, that's good to know.
| iszomer wrote:
| It's sufficient enough for my needs. I use Joplin with it as well
| as no-frills file syncing across my home network. Just a note on
| revision history: it's better to configure this feature on the
| notetaking app alone while disabling it on Syncthing.
|
| My only gripe is that this utility may soon become deprecated as
| Android continues to update their convoluted storage schemes.
| deaddabe wrote:
| Can you share a reference wrt evolving Android storage schemes?
| commoner wrote:
| Android 11+ enforces scoped storage, which restricts access
| to the filesystem in many cases.[1] Syncthing requests the
| "All files access" permission[2] to get around this, but the
| /sdcard/Android/data directory (private app data) is still
| off limits.[3]
|
| [1] https://source.android.com/devices/storage/scoped
|
| [2] https://developer.android.com/training/data-
| storage/manage-a...
|
| [3] https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing-
| android/issues/1638
| sneak wrote:
| Syncthing is great, but bear in mind in the default configuration
| (unless you set STNOUPGRADE=1) it will automatically download a
| replacement binary and exec it, granting the developer remote
| code execution on your machine at any time, Solarwinds-style.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27933308
|
| No-interaction autoupdate really should be opt-in. It's super
| dangerous software otherwise. Anyone with release credentials
| could own many many thousands of machines with a single action.
| andrewshadura wrote:
| Not on Debian though.
| sneak wrote:
| ...if you install via apt. Binaries downloaded from the
| website still have this issue.
|
| PS: Thank you Debian maintainers.
| octopoc wrote:
| Syncthing is not as good as Resilio Sync at syncing huge folders
| quickly. Resilio Sync can sync 10 MB/s on my wired home internet,
| but Syncthing usually uses only about 1-8 MB/s. Not sure why.
| MightyOwl13 wrote:
| I started using Syncthing a while ago and its blazing fast. If
| you do LAN syncs, try setting fixed IPs to your devices in your
| router and when pairing them in Syncthing use their ips in the
| address field instead of using Dynamic.
|
| So in my case my server would be 10.0.0.1 and I have two
| devices, let's say 10.0.0.10 and 10.0.0.20, I would putmy
| servers IP in as tcp://10.0.0.1:22000 in the settings page.
|
| You can then even disable most of the doscovery options (if not
| all). Curios if you will see improvements!
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