63 lines
3.1 KiB
Text
63 lines
3.1 KiB
Text
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title: Syncthing: Syncing...
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tags: software, file-synchronization
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date: 2014-07-05 22:06
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format: md
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;;;;;
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[SyncThing](http://syncthing.net/) is a very interesting distributed
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file sharing option. It is a lot like (what I understand of) Dropbox
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and the file sharing capabilities of ownCloud, as well as
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SparkleShare, SeaFile and others. The biggest difference compared to
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all of these, though, is that SyncThing is distributed, or
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peer-to-peer, there is no central server used in the file sharing.
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Setting it up is a breeze. Install it, run it and you're almost done.
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Once you have it installed on at least two computers (or know someone
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else who has installed it), you have to let them know eachother. You
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do this by exchanging their node ids. SyncThing know two things: Nodes
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and Repositories. Nodes are the different machines you want to share
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with and repositories are the different directories you want to share
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with certain nodes. Exchanging node ids requires an actual exchange.
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If you're managing both machines yourself it shouldn't be too hard to
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manage, if you're sharing with someone else you need another channel
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of communication to get this data across. Once you've exchanged node
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ids and your firewall is setup properly (it needs to let through a
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special TCP port for global discovery) your machines will connect. If
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you're both on a local network it should happen quickly, if you're
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across a large gap of land it should still happen fairly quickly.
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After both your machines are connected, or even before, you should
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setup some repositories and share them with the node you just
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connected with, otherwise nothing will happen. Again there's some
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communication involved here, because both sides will have to share a
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repository with the same name. If either side doesn't share a
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repository with the other side, it won't sync. After you've
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communicated which names to use, though, all should go smoothly. It
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check once every 60 seconds whether or not anything's changed and if
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it has it'll try and sync with the other machine(s).
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One downside to this program, at least on Linux, compared to ownCloud,
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at least using the ownCloud Client, is that there is no notification
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of newly arrived files. So again you'd have to send the person owning
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the node you're sharing with a message telling them that something new
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should be waiting for them.
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A very nice thing on the other hand, is that everything is encrypted.
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And because there's no central server involved, only the people you
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choose to share with (and possibly they choose to share with) will
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have the files. There is no single server that can get hacked into
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where all your files can be found. It's also open source, which of
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course makes it possible for you, or anyone else, to look at, improve,
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audit or do anything with the code you want to or need to to ensure to
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yourself that it's not doing anything it shouldn't be doing.
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I haven't been able to test it thoroughly in the real world. I'm
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currently just sharing between my desktop PC and my laptop, and I'm
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sharing with a good friend of mine. So I'm looking forward to seeing
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more of it.
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