How to sync files across all your devices with Syncthing...
Posted: Wed 12 Jul 2017, 23:57
Evening, kiddiwinks.
Upholding the Puppy maxim of choice, I give you the following.....
I was browsing this evening (as you do!), and came across a link from the tech site MakeUseOf to a new type of free, open-source file-synchronisation app, called Syncthing:-
https://syncthing.net/
It works via peer-to-peer, in very much the same way that torrent clients (such as Transmission) do. In other words, all the work is performed by your own machine, and those you're connected to over the network; there is no 'middleman', or remote, cloud-based server, as with, for instance, DropBox. This ensures somewhat greater privacy.
(So it's an 'old', proven formula re-deployed in a different way for an alternative desired outcome. Nowt wrong wi' that....)
The first time you fire it up, it creates a folder alongside the 'Syncthing' directory, in which ever parent directory you've chosen to use, called, appropriately, 'Sync'. This can be renamed if you wish. You can sym-link other folders into this, as Syncthing respects hard links (except in Windoze). There will be a fair bit of CPU usage the first time around, as Syncthing gets everything 'matched up'; after this, it will be fairly modest.
Syncthing doesn't use a separate desktop GUI; just like CUPS in Puppy, you access it via the browser, on 'http://127.0.0.1:8384/'. There is apparently a GTK-based GUI available from the website; I haven't, however, tried this, since the browser window is quite good enough for my needs.
It takes more setting-up than, say, 'ResilioSync' (formerly BitTorrentSync, which MakeUseOf compares it with), which is a paid app; this has a GUI, and a lot of the settings are performed 'behind the scenes'. However, I thought this one might appeal to some of you, as it's highly configurable, and it's possible to manually set-up just about every aspect of its operation.....which gives you very much greater control.
Personally, I'm running this from my remote data partition, sym-linked into /root (/mnt/home would work just as well, to keep things outside of PuppySpace), with the executable binary within the Syncthing directory sym-linked into /root/Startup, for auto-starting at every boot. Even though I'm effectively running just a single instance of Syncthing, you still need to set things up for each individual Pup, as it recognises each one through a unique 56-digit encrypted 'identifier' ID.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Upon extracting the tarball, I've renamed the folder inside the extracted one to 'Syncthing'; this is the one I've placed on sda1 (my remote data partition), and which has been sym-linked into each Pup. It contains everything needed for the app to run. The 'Sync' directory will be created alongside it in the same parent directory, wherever you decide to place it. If you do decide to place it in /root (and have it set to auto-start), when the default browser opens up with the Syncthing page showing, you will get a discreet suggestion not to 'run as root'. This can be safely ignored; all will still function correctly.
As with all sync apps, the hard work gets done the first time it runs. After this, it's just differentially scanning & updating recent changes only.
It's available in both 32- and 64-bit versions, and, so far, has fired straight up in every Pup I've tried it in. I'm assuming the binary must be statically compiled, with all required dependencies built-in.
The website has a comprehensive FAQ and extensive documentation to help with any queries. It's all pretty straight-forward; just takes a wee while to work your way through it.
I've tried many file-syncing applications in the past, and never got on too well with them; this, even a dunderhead like me can figure out. As the years roll by, and you amass more and more in the way of files'n'stuff, so it becomes more imperative that you find ways of managing and organising it all.
Hope some of you may find this useful. Enjoy.
Mike.
Upholding the Puppy maxim of choice, I give you the following.....
I was browsing this evening (as you do!), and came across a link from the tech site MakeUseOf to a new type of free, open-source file-synchronisation app, called Syncthing:-
https://syncthing.net/
It works via peer-to-peer, in very much the same way that torrent clients (such as Transmission) do. In other words, all the work is performed by your own machine, and those you're connected to over the network; there is no 'middleman', or remote, cloud-based server, as with, for instance, DropBox. This ensures somewhat greater privacy.
(So it's an 'old', proven formula re-deployed in a different way for an alternative desired outcome. Nowt wrong wi' that....)
The first time you fire it up, it creates a folder alongside the 'Syncthing' directory, in which ever parent directory you've chosen to use, called, appropriately, 'Sync'. This can be renamed if you wish. You can sym-link other folders into this, as Syncthing respects hard links (except in Windoze). There will be a fair bit of CPU usage the first time around, as Syncthing gets everything 'matched up'; after this, it will be fairly modest.
Syncthing doesn't use a separate desktop GUI; just like CUPS in Puppy, you access it via the browser, on 'http://127.0.0.1:8384/'. There is apparently a GTK-based GUI available from the website; I haven't, however, tried this, since the browser window is quite good enough for my needs.
It takes more setting-up than, say, 'ResilioSync' (formerly BitTorrentSync, which MakeUseOf compares it with), which is a paid app; this has a GUI, and a lot of the settings are performed 'behind the scenes'. However, I thought this one might appeal to some of you, as it's highly configurable, and it's possible to manually set-up just about every aspect of its operation.....which gives you very much greater control.
Personally, I'm running this from my remote data partition, sym-linked into /root (/mnt/home would work just as well, to keep things outside of PuppySpace), with the executable binary within the Syncthing directory sym-linked into /root/Startup, for auto-starting at every boot. Even though I'm effectively running just a single instance of Syncthing, you still need to set things up for each individual Pup, as it recognises each one through a unique 56-digit encrypted 'identifier' ID.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Upon extracting the tarball, I've renamed the folder inside the extracted one to 'Syncthing'; this is the one I've placed on sda1 (my remote data partition), and which has been sym-linked into each Pup. It contains everything needed for the app to run. The 'Sync' directory will be created alongside it in the same parent directory, wherever you decide to place it. If you do decide to place it in /root (and have it set to auto-start), when the default browser opens up with the Syncthing page showing, you will get a discreet suggestion not to 'run as root'. This can be safely ignored; all will still function correctly.
As with all sync apps, the hard work gets done the first time it runs. After this, it's just differentially scanning & updating recent changes only.
It's available in both 32- and 64-bit versions, and, so far, has fired straight up in every Pup I've tried it in. I'm assuming the binary must be statically compiled, with all required dependencies built-in.
The website has a comprehensive FAQ and extensive documentation to help with any queries. It's all pretty straight-forward; just takes a wee while to work your way through it.
I've tried many file-syncing applications in the past, and never got on too well with them; this, even a dunderhead like me can figure out. As the years roll by, and you amass more and more in the way of files'n'stuff, so it becomes more imperative that you find ways of managing and organising it all.
Hope some of you may find this useful. Enjoy.
Mike.