jdrch

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Posts posted by jdrch

  1. 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.

    Quote

    if there is a way of installing a linux distro (or freebsd) that would encrypt files on write (even non-encrypted resilio folders).

    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.

    Quote

    one can "deploy and forget" resilio instances?

    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.

  2. 2 minutes ago, eltopo said:

    I suggest that do NOT run rslsync as root. run it as a normal user with webui's listening port > 1024.

    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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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?

  5. 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):
     

    Quote

     

    Due to continuous instability and breakage of UrBackup Client on the macOS platform, official support for this platform has currently ceased. Please consider using a different backup solution for this platform.

    [...]

    MacOS Mojave's privacy protection prevents root from reading all files and causes backup errors. Adding UrBackup Client to the list of allowed apps either doesn't work, works till reboot or causes high CPU usage during backups

     

    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.

  6. On 8/19/2019 at 11:14 AM, kos13 said:

    Hi guys,

    First of all, thank you for your support. We are committed to making Sync the best and fastest way to move your files around. 

    Recently we went thru some organizational changes and internal tools adjustments, and this affected the speed we respond to the forum posts and support tickets. We are working to resolve the situation as soon as possible. I hope the situation will normalize in a couple of weeks. 

    Meanwhile, if you have some urgent issues feel free to e-mail me at kos@resilio.com

    kos

    Good to hear from you :)

  7. 1 minute ago, SirKronos said:

    So that's good news to a certain extent. But they don't seem to be responding to support tickets from Resilio Pro/Home customers which isn't cool.

    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.

  8. 5 hours ago, SirKronos said:

    laid off most, if not all, of their support staff

    ... 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.

    4 hours ago, Miyo said:

    Since the services and relay servers are still working, what's the worst case scenario here? 

    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.

  9. 12 minutes ago, iswrong said:

     

    This is false. Staff like RomanZ used to be active on the forums.

    I am still sure that Resilio is fine, even if they had cashflow problems, the technology is pretty valuable, so it is likely that they could be acquired if needed. But I wouldn't be surprised if the consumer-level desktop client is deprioritized. The desktop client ha[sd] a hard-core following, but I bet that a large chunk has always used free sync. Over time, they have segmented their product offering and it is likely that they saw a large majority of income coming from large(r) business users.

    Of course, this is conjecture like any other post.

     

    Agreed!

    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.

  10. 6 hours ago, iswrong said:

    Another possibility is that they are refocusing on enterprise-only (Connect). At any rate, this topic is two weeks old, if they'd wanted to end the worries, they would have replied to this topic by now.

    1. Employees have never replied on here, AFAIK. Only forum staff ever have
    2. 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 🤷‍♂️

  11. 3 hours ago, ivo.welch@gmail.com said:

     

    purchased home pro version, too, and send a support request 3 weeks ago (auto acknowledgment).  have not heard back, either.

     

    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.

  12. 4 minutes ago, David.P said:

    Thank you JD. That calms me down a bit. Also thanks for your comparison between the two synchronization solutions. Using Syncthing at the moment only because it is portable and can be "installed" and run without admin rights (i.e. at work).

    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.

  13. 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:

    1. 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
    2. Syncthing's Windows service functionality (a critical feature for me) is hacky at best
    3. 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
    4. Syncthing's Android performance is terrible
    5. Syncthing's file/folder change detection is slower, more CPU intensive, and inefficient compared to Resilio Sync's
    6. 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.

  14. 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 🤷‍♂️

  15. 17 hours ago, Alex. said:

    Please redownload Sync from the following urls & reinstall. Fixed.

    
    http://sync-jenkins-artifacts.s3.amazonaws.com/sync-nas/2.6.3/Debian/resilio-sync_2.6.3-1_amd64.deb
    
    http://sync-jenkins-artifacts.s3.amazonaws.com/sync-nas/2.6.3/Debian/resilio-sync_2.6.3-1_i386.deb

    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?

  16. 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?

  17. 20 minutes ago, xfelix said:

    after almost one month i still haven't seen a clear answer for the issue of 2.6.2 on Synology nas. Is it safe to install the 2.6.2 package on Synology NAS or leave it as 2.6.1?

    I am using an old model of Synology nas which does not support docker. That's why I ask this question.

    Thanks.

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

  18. 4 minutes ago, skst said:

    Click Check for Update.

    Authorize elevation to administrator privileges. (Why? Is Resilio Sync still being installed to Roaming? It should install into AppData\Local\ which does not require administrator privileges.)

    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.)