jdrch

The biggest problem with your idea is that sync != backup. While you can certainly use Resilio Sync, you'll need something else at the backup locations too. Not necessary. All you need is whole disk (or volume) encryption on the target device. This will render the entire device unreadable without your credentials. It's essential that you do this, because your friends and family are legally responsible for any data physically located in their homes. This means that if the data is readable, you open them to legal risks. No computing system is 100% deploy and forget. Also, I'm not so sure about Pis and encrypted disk/volume support. A better option might be lightly used enterprise PCs such as any of these that fit these specs. Then you could install either Linux with disk/volume encryption + unattended upgrades or Windows 10 with Bitlocker (you'll need a PC with a TPM for this) and automatic updates enabled. Throw in TeamViewer and you can manage them remotely as needed.

It's standard Unix(-like) practice not to, but TBH I haven't seen any major case of compromised root process KOing a Unix(-like) OS in a very long time. The biggest reason not to, IMO, is that rslsync as root makes the user's own synced files read-only to them, which is problematic.

I wrote a simple guide on how to do the above. It works on FuryBSD too and can also be used to switch an installation from being run under root to being run under user without resinstalling. For distributions such as GhostBSD that have an rslsync package available in their repos: the only thing in the instructions that might change is you install & update from the repo using your package manager instead of manually from the archive. Thanks @Alex. for the assistance.

Good news: it worked! Bad news: I missed a step. You also have to change ownership and permissions on the .sync folder copy so your user account can read it and its contents. Otherwise you'll get a permissions error.

I'm currently running Resilio Sync as root on FreeBSD (don't be put off by the OS; I suspect anything that works on Linux will work on FreeBSD too as long as the appropriate equivalent commands are used.) I'd like to get it running under my username instead of root. How do I do this without having to set up Sync from scratch again? I suspect I'd have to move the .sync folder from its current location in /bin to somewhere it can be read without superuser permissions, e.g. usr/home/myusername/ , and then I'd also have to change permissions on the files and folders that synced as root. I'd probably also have to create a .conf file, save it somewhere it can be read without root, and use it to point to the .sync folder's new location. Does that sound right? Any other ideas?

Probably is. Usually all you have to do is manually change the version references in it. Updated to the latest build across 5 Windows 10 machines with no issues, BTW. Great job, devs.

New build dropped today, everyone: Thanks to the Resilio team

So I recall you posting about this and didn't have anything to offer since I don't use macOS. But while evaluating backup solutions for FreeBSD, I did come across this support note from urBackup (emphasis mine): So basically it seems macOS has crippled root filesystem access. One thing you could try is creating a group in macOS, applying read, write, and execute permissions for that group to the folders Resilio Sync touches, and then adding the users whose directories Sync has access to, as well as the rslsync user, to that group. I have no idea how that would work, and *nix group permissions tend to be screwy, but there's that. Let us know how it goes. BTW I suppose the rest of us will be facing a similar problem when Scoped Storage becomes mandatory in Android 11. Just about every app that touches the Android filesystem will have to be updated for it.

Good to hear from you

The forum literally got updated since this thread started. That said, I don't think they have a lot of manpower. Headcount is pretty small for a product that effectively competes with Dropbox, OneDrive, etc. and has far wider platform support. I think the reason I'm not too worried is my Pro license is lifetime free because I helped beta test during the app -> service transition back in the day. If I were a paying customer hell yeah I'd be mad at service tickets not being replied to. So I can certainly see where some of you are coming from.

I mean, of course. As I said in my 2nd reply on this thread, it's super weird to call a project with a software release within the last calendar year dead without an official announcement. But some folks enjoy panicking 😛 🤷‍♂️

... they have 31 employees listed on LinkedIn, including developers. I'm not sure what's going on, either, but if we assume whatever has resulted in the current situation started when forum mods stopped posting here months ago, then it's reasonable to assume all the developers should have been gone by now. They aren't. Well, I just noticed a "Quote selection" feature and the ability to move quotes on the forum that I haven't seen previously, so it looks like maintenance is still being done. The worst case scenario would be Pro and above licenses suddenly failing to validate, thereby crippling the product overnight (even if technically it's still functional.) Personally I'd have no choice but to move to SyncThing 🤮🤮🤮 at that point. I kinda doubt that happens without warning, though. If it actually is abandoned but the licenses keep working; then it'll just keep working until underlying OS changes prevent it from doing so. For example, if they don't update the app to support Scoped Storage (mandatory in Android R) then it'll definitely stop working on Android. In fact, if you use Android I'd call Scoped Storage the biggest threat to P2P workflows. Bigger than Resilio Sync going under.

RomanZ was an actual employee? I always thought the forum folks were just mods with insider connections (such as the ability to view tickets.) Never got the impression they were internal employees. My bad.

Employees have never replied on here, AFAIK. Only forum staff ever have The company has almost never been directly reachable. There's no contact page and if you look their location up in the phonebook no one answers (I tried this back in 2013 or 2014) To me the most troubling thing is tickets not being responded to for paying customers and what appears to be broken macOS functionality. But longtime users might recall the stretch in 2014 or thereabout during which Sync was basically completely broken. It was during the transition to the Web GUI, nothing worked reliably for a while, and the company in general was pretty unresponsive about it. By 2015 it was fixed and things have been mostly smooth since. But for now, I don't have any better options (see above for explanation), I'm in my 6th year of use, and my license is already paid for, so I'm keeping the faith 🤷‍♂️

Try running Sync under your own account instead and see if that works.

But your payment cleared? Hmmm maybe they're going through reorganization or something because the LinkedIn and FB pages are still posting and they just advertised for a job in SF. LinkedIn still lists 31 employees.

You're welcome! I hadn't considered the portable use case because I prefer my sync backends to run as a service (which makes portability impossible.) The advantage of services (in Windows) is they run as long as the computer is on, regardless of who's logged in. Ergo, I can be sure all my (Windows) peers sync as long as they're powered on and have a network connection. I can certainly see the need for portability on a work machine ... last time I had that need I used the built-in OneDrive client until IT shut that down.

OK, everybody calm down a bit. 1st of all, it's a bit ... disingenuous to call a project that had a version release within the past calendar year, a blog post within the last 3 months, and responds to support tickets "dead" just because user forum (i.e. not actual support ticket) staff appear to have gone AWOL. OpenVPN has approximately the same forum situation and I'm not sure anyone in their right mind would call it dead. As for Synctrazor/Syncthing, if it works better for you, by all means use it. I tried it and came back to Resilio because: Syncthing doesn't have anywhere near the platform support Resilio Sync does. For example, there are no official packages for RPM-based distros, and nothing for BSD or Raspberry Pi or arm(hf or 64) or iOS, all of which Resilio Sync supports. I run Windows 10, BSD, Raspbian on an RPi, Android, and Debian so I need Sync's platform support Syncthing's Windows service functionality (a critical feature for me) is hacky at best Syncthing requires each peers for each folder to be manually connected to each other. This means Syncthing's setup overhead doesn't scale well as the number of devices you use grows. Right now I have 10 peers (devices.) If I were to switch to Syncthing, I'd have to manually connect each of those peers to each other per folder. So for 3 folders I'd be looking at 27 manual connections per peer to start and easily nearly 100 manual connections just to get set up, which is ridiculous Syncthing's Android performance is terrible Syncthing's file/folder change detection is slower, more CPU intensive, and inefficient compared to Resilio Sync's Last time I checked, Syncthing had problems syncing to microSD cards on Android The worst part of all of the above is every time I talk with someone even tangentially associated with the project, it doesn't seem as if they 1) view any of the above as problematic 2) have any intention of fixing or addressing them. All of the aforesaid combined make Syncthing a non-starter for me. Sync isn't dead. If you have an issue, file a support ticket; you'll get a response.

I don't think so, I've had staff respond to a support ticket as recently as June 26. They might just have scaled back their forum support. There's a post from May on the blog too. If you're having difficulties, file a support ticket. But yeah it does seem like development has slowed a bit. I don't think there's been a new build since January, but everything's working just fine for me on Raspbian, Debian, Android, Windows 10, and BSD, so 🤷‍♂️

Is this the reason Sync keeps crashing on my 19.04 PC? Also, any idea when this fix will be added to the repository build?

Odd problem I've been having on my Note9 running Android 8.1 for a while now: Sync will often say it's connected to all the peers for all its folders, and even be responsive to touch input, BUT no syncing actually occurs. The only solution I've found so far is to kill the app, clear the cache, and restart it. None of my other Android devices have this issue, and yes, it happens even with battery optimization disabled for Sync. Any ideas?

I bigger question is when Synology will issue proper speculative execution vulnerability patches but I digress ...

I always just download the Windows build directly from the forum link and go from there. I suspect the reason it installs in that way is to allow access to the folders of other (non-admin) users so it can sync them too. Personally I run Sync as a service (protected by a pretty strong password) which avoids the permissions problem (my antivirus as the same privileges so running as SYSTEM doesn't bother me.)

NAS has never been a use case for me. And for that I always thought it was accessed by opening the NAS' desktop UI and then launching Sync from there.

I didn't mean it's a security risk. It's actually convenient because it means you can admin Sync from any device on the same LAN, which is neat. Plenty of other apps allow this: Pi-hole, UniFi Controller; your router, modem, and AP, etc.