trevellyan

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Posts posted by trevellyan

  1. That said, wouldn't it make more sense to *exclude* the xattr files by default? My guess is that for the vast majority of the users, this is just useless overhead. Afterall, OS X will automatically generate these files on-demeand.

     

    It's not clear to me what the benefit of syncing them is. However, Sync 1.4.93 is working well for me with the default StreamsList, where version 1.3.109 would sometimes get hung up on xattrs, so I'm just leaving well alone.

  2. I'll see if I can resolve the issue by killing all nodes and simply adding them one by one and ensuring that they all have the Finder-files in the IgnoreList. That way, it shouldn't be possible for any of the nodes to be aware of these files.

     

    When you say "Finder-files", are you referring to OS X extended attributes, aka xattr? If so, you should be working with the StreamsList, not the IgnoreList. See http://sync-help.bittorrent.com/customer/portal/articles/1682051-alt-streams-and-xattrs-in-sync

  3. Now it asked me to enter the rescan interval. So the problem seems to be resolved. Thanks! :)

     

    Great!

     

    By the way, I don't think the "debconf-default" that you saw has anything to do with the default configuration of Sync, it just refers to the fact that you only have one instance set up, so it's the default instance.

  4. Ok, thanks. That worked fine. When starting btsync via

    /etc/init.d/btsync start

    it gives me

    [ ok ] Autostarting btsync instance 'debconf-default':.

    Sounds like it always uses the default debconf settings instead of the settings I set up in the settings. dat file.

     

    I believe the correct way to adjust settings for the packaged version is to use the dpkg-reconfigure command. This will allow you to adjust options that weren't available during the initial install.

  5. Main question: If I'm syncing this between three (+) nodes how important is it to have RAID on the primary server?

     

    Other question: Is there any problem with my sync strategy? Ie. All data synced between three nodes and then smaller sync profiles to sync specific sub directories with "second level" nodes like laptops or phones? Possible case for sync conflict?

     

     

    The only way I can thin of to respond to your main question is, if you implemented RAID 1 when you thought it was a backup solution, and you now recognize that it isn't, then after implementing a proper backup solution, maybe you no longer need RAID 1. I'm not sure this has anything to do with whether or not you're using Sync.

     

    As for your other question, I seem to remember reading somewhere in these forums that that this is an unsupported configuration and not recommended, but I'm not sure.

     

    There is a feature request topic about Selective Sync. Maybe that's what you're looking for.

  6. My question is simple: Would you trust Sync with all of your files? 

     

    What do you mean by "all of your files"? If you're thinking in terms of a backup solution, I think you should look elsewhere.

     

    I trust Sync to do the task it's designed for, which is synchronizing specific folders, subject to caveats laid out by the developer such as "don't change the contents of a synced folder on a device while Sync isn't running on that device". This task of synchronizing specific folders, which Sync is doing reliably for me, covers only a small subset of all my files. All my files are backed up onsite and offsite, so if anything goes wrong with Sync, like it can with any software, I can recover.

  7. And is there any way I can keep my current Web UI settings and just change that single parameter? Can't be that hard to accomplish...

     

     

    I think you'll find if you only put the settings you need in the config file, the other settings will remain untouched. Also, the new settings will be stored in the internal config that Sync maintains and you won't have to use the config file each time.

  8. I'm seeing some increased RAM usage, but nothing extreme. I didn't make a note of the before numbers, but in the use case I described above, the 1.4.93 OS X client is using about 75MB.

     

    I wish there was a way to see more info about what files are specifically out of sync.

     

    With the GUI open and the Peers column displayed, this takes 2 clicks:

    1. Click the Peers link for the folder.

    2. Click the disclosure next to the peer you're interested in.

  9. I was still using 1.3.109 until a few days ago.

     

    My use case:

    1 always-on Linux box as private cloud

    2 Mac desktops

    2 Mac laptops

    1 folder shared with all, only a couple of dozen MBs in a few hundred files

    1 folder shared with all, approx. 50k files in a bit over 2GB

    2 folders each shared with Linux box, 1 desktop and 1 laptop, a few hundred MB

    physical access to all devices

     

    My story:

    I was early to the party on 1.4.x and it was a bad experience. I did an in-place upgrade on one device and ran into lots of problems, even though the sync core is billed as compatible. Failed connections, no progress on syncs, many hours spent watching debug logs trying to figure out what was going on, lots of emails exchanged with support. One common factor seemed to be problems related to xattrs, which were in my .SyncIgnore files on 1.3.x but are handled differently in 1.4.x. In the end I removed all trace of 1.4.x and started fresh with 1.3.109. I still saw occasional problems with xattrs, but nothing I couldn't resolve with some tinkering.

     

    In the meantime I continued evaluating alternatives, including Seafile, ownCloud, Syncthing/Pulse and AeroFS. Nothing else I tried could match the combination of simplicity, flexibility and performance I found in BTSync. I resigned myself to sticking with BTSync for a while, which meant I would inevitably be upgrading at some point.

     

    A few days ago I took the plunge again with 1.4.93. However, instead of an in-place upgrade, I removed all traces of 1.3.109, including hidden folders, preferences, firewall rules etc, then did a completely clean install of 1.4.93 (AppCleaner is helpful here on OS X).

     

    I don't know if the clean install is causal, but everything went very smoothly and I've seen minimal issues with the new version. I no longer have to think about xattrs (I left .sync/StreamsList at default and only added my specific needs to .sync/SyncIgnore), and the new UI doesn't bother me. It's less compact than the old, but I reason that the more I trust BTSync, the less time I'll spend checking the UI anyway.

     

    The clean install process was tedious and I'd be unhappy having to do it with fully released commercial software, but I can live with it with a free product that's still in public beta. Of course, it helps that I have a simple use case - YMMV.

  10. One more question, specifically about LAN encryption (feel free to move to a new topic).

     

    Who wins when one peer wants to encrypt and another doesn't? Only one of my devices is headless and thus missing the advanced options in the GUI (and the others are Macs), so that's the only one for which I haven't been able to turn off LAN encryption. Will the other peers all be forced to encrypt when talking to it?

  11. n the meantime, the workaround - as indicated above - would be to set any advanced settings via a config file instead.

     

    Then please clarify the correct approach. If I'm referring to http://sync-help.bittorrent.com/customer/portal/articles/1670248-advanced-preferences, and I want to turn off LAN encryption, would this be sufficient and correct?

    {/* Advanced preferences can be added to config file. Info is available at http://sync-help.bittorrent.com */lan_encrypt_data: 0}

    Other than wanting to know exactly how to map from the docs to the config file, I also ask because some of the boolean values are documented as defaulting to 0 or 1, while others are shown defaulting to true or false. Perhaps Sync's JSON parser doesn't care?

  12. The outcome of this process was unexpected. When I set up debug logging and restarted BTSync, one of the two problem folders successfully synced. I let everything run for a while, then disabled debug logging and restarted BTSync again. At this point the second problem folder successfully synced.

     

    I'm going to send in the logs anyway, since I'm very curious to find out if there's an explanation.

  13. The files were not changed en masse on any peer, though it's likely that a small percentage of files were changed on the Macs, since these folders are active. The Linux peer only has read-only secrets and no files are ever changed there, at least not knowingly.

     

    Everything was fully synced before this behavior started.

     

    I will work on collecting logs from the VPS and one of the Macs.

  14. Four of 5 peers are on OS X 10.9.4. The Linux peer is a VPS running Ubuntu 14.04 x86 LTS - BTSync was installed using tuxpoldo's unofficial server packages. All peers sync 2 folders, selected peers sync 2 additional folders, the Linux peer syncs all folders. BTSync version is 1.3.106.

     

    I noticed today in the device list on the Mac clients that they want to send the entire contents of 2 folders to the Linux peer (43,201 files in one, 391 files in the other). Of course, the entire contents of both folders have not changed. At the same time, the upload and download speed indicators remain at 0.0 kB/s.

     

    I've tried restarting the Linux peer and quitting and reopening BTSync on one of the Macs, but nothing changed.

     

    I don't see any !sync files in any of the folders.