jake.sadie

Many years ago I set up a BitTorrent sync as the solution of choice for our research group to sync/backup individual user files to the server. I used a solution similar to the one described here (https://www.8layer8.com/?p=1082) to create config files for each user which pointed to their individual sync directories. The config files would include hard-coded directory keys. Each user would then connect to these folders with their keys in order to simply backup their data onto the server. With the move to Resilio Sync, I haven't seen any documentation around using this method (or something similar) to achieve the same end goal. Has anyone had success in implementing multiple instances for different users on their server?

Hi Helen, Yes, it was related. I was able to get things installed but I still cannot get the service started. Any suggestions? Would you prefer we take this discussion to the other thread?

Hi dh250, I just installed on my raspberry pi and cannot seem to get the service started. can you (or someone else) help explain what you did to get it going after you had your initial trouble? I keep getting an error telling me that No /usr/bin/btsync found running whenever I try to stop/restart the program. Thanks!

womp - problem solved. got rid of that outdated package that came from before I installed using your script. all better!

Hey Moe, Trying to shift over to the official repository after some time and I'm running into some issues moving away from your script. Any chance you can help me out? I deleted all of the files and directories listed in your remove command and set up the repository per the instructions from the blog post you linked, but installing results in the error shown in the image below. I'm trying to hunt down where the bittorrent-sync-pi-sewver 2.2.2 directory might be, but cannot find it... Any help greatly appreciated.

FYI, been using this script since ~2.2.5 and it works great. Thanks!

+1

Just a follow-up for you. I have now installed this on two raspberry pis with non-default usernames and can confirm that taking these steps were necessary for the install to complete successfully: Edit btsync.sh to update to username I want to use to <user>Run btsync.sh to complete installEdit /etc/btsync/config.jsonLine 7: change <user>d to pidLine 7: change /home/pi/.btsync.... to /home/<user>/.btsyncLine 10: updated port number to reflect port number I was previously using (not necessary for everyone)Edit /etc/init.d/btsyncLine 21: change /home/pi/.btsync/data to home/<user>/.btsync/dataLine 25: change /home/pi/.btsync/data/.syncstream to /home/<user>/.btsync/data/.syncstreamLine 41: change db<user>d to dbpidLine 42: change "$db<user>d" to "$dbpid"Line 43: change "Stop<user>ng..." to "Stopping..."Line 49: change db<user>d to dbpidLine 50: change "$db<user>d" to "$dbpid"Line 53: change ...(<user>d $db<user>d)" to ...(pid $dbpid)"Again, not really a big deal to figure out, and thanks so much for doing this! Just so you know, my primary use case is I have two raspberry pis with large HDDs hooked up, one on the west coast where I live and one on the east coast at my mom's place. I have both running as backup servers for my family so there are two places data is backed up. I normally run multiple accounts/processes on each, one per family member. I previously wrote config scripts for each person, left them in the /etc/btsync folder, and the original init.d script back in the alpha/beta days would auto-load each whenever the process started. I'm not sure if this init.d script will do the same. Might be a nice thing to add, though I am guessing it is likely a feature that will help such a smaller user base that you might want to omit it. Just a thought.

Hmmm, so I tried to accomplish this with a new folder pair. Computer A and B are both linked to my Pro License with the same username/key. I made a new advanced folder on computer A, setting it as the owner. It showed up on Computer B, as expected. I connected it, but it is default Owner with R/W access. I want computer B to merely be a backup server. I feel like the Pro version should allow both user-based and device-based access...

I may have missed this long ago, but any way to change a folder from standard to advanced? I was living on 1.4.111 until 2.2 was released. Now I'm trying to update everything and I'd love to take advantage of this feature (I have a Pro license).

installed but init.d script doesn't seem to be working for me? things I changed: I had to change my user name in the script to match my current user name. i changed the config.json to simply change the port number, so there should be no issues there. installed without errors after that point. now running the start command produces the echo output properly, but the service does not actually start. running the status command confirms that the service is not running. any ideas? learning more.... removing the --quiet and -b option from the start-stop-daemon command in the init.d script, i now can produce an error output: " Error while parsing config file: Invalid key 'jaked_file' " My config.json file says jaked_file should be: 'home/pi/.btsync/data/.syncsystem/btsync.pid' which means I have found at least one error. The config.json file needs to auto-update that line to include the proper $BTSYNC_USER if the person installing this changes the user from 'pi'. Manually changing this to '/home/jake/.btsync/data/.syncsystem/btsync.pid' still does not do the trick, unfortunately. Got it. VERY unfortunately, it appears that whenever you wrote the script to swap out the default username 'pi' with the intended username, 'jake' in my case, all of the lines with 'pi' anywhere in them were swapped with 'jake' that means all of the 'pid' variables turned into 'jaked' variables, which i had to change back manually. maybe there is a cleaner way to write the script to swap out from the default user being pi? regardless, thanks so much for writing this and putting it together! very helpful.

Actual poll included. Sorry, didn't realize I had that option when posting the other threads. I'm curious. The $40/year thing still has my blood boiling as well as many other folks. On top of that, the 10 folder limit is simply unacceptable. I've spent 2 years behind this product and I've invested a good bit of money once I figured out 3 or 4 months in that I could really get a lot of mileage out of this if I invested in some more hardware. I did and was happy until now. Now I want to know, how much have others invested?

My argument of 'this is wrong' in response to your defense of this "feature" was as substantive as your defense. You may want 2.0 to be great out of the box to justify your paying for it, but it's just not there. Time to accept it and and start expecting better from the people developing a product many of us have spent hours and hours, literally dollars and dollars, to help configure, provide feedback, and issue bug reports for. For two years.

Cutting to straight to what we all want now... Staff should be responding to these issues. They are silent. I've seen numerous threads in this forum where posters are expressing their dissatisfaction and the mods have actually linked the posters to this thread, so it is clear the mods are aware of the discontent, but we aren't hearing ANY response. Take some action rather than being so spineless.

First off, can you define exactly what the folks behind the scenes were doing to "support" free users before the Pro version came out? From what I can tell, it was bug fixes and responses to forum posts, which is a responsibility that any sensible developer is going to undertake if they actually want their software to reach a large number of people. Also, your 10,000 paid versus 100,000 free is a terrible argument if you consider the fact that *many* people would pay once to have BTSync software rather than do a subscription model. What if you break it down with these three offerings: BTSync-Lite (Free): fairly restricted version of the software, but still gets you more than 10 folders for crying out loudBTSync ($20): unrestricted version with regard to folder limits and other pro features, but no access to 24/7 support or other elements of the pro version that are actually a subscription-based service. Upgrade at will to a newer version but still receive maintenance/bug patches for about a year.BTSync-Pro ($40/year): the Pro version as we know it.Now, let's assume half of the folks here would have thrown the $20 down for the BTSync version I suggest and 10% of them still go with the Pro version. You just bumped yearly revenue by $1M. Use that as incentive to continually improve and produce new versions of the software. If you release major upgrades every 6 months at $20 per release, you might even get some of those 50,000 BTSync users to upgrade and now you've earned yourself another $40/year Pro equivalent revenue. I get that they want to earn money, but their approach is so nonsensical. They have a good product, but it is a Honda Accord, not a Ferrari. If they price their product appropriately, they'll get revenue based on a large numbers of users paying smaller prices rather than a few power users willing to pay the big fee. This is so simple that it is painful to watch them shoot themselves in the feet. This. I am already actively discouraging everyone I speak with from upgrading from 1.4 > 2.0 if they already have BTSync and going a step further by discouraging people new to the idea of cloudless data syncing from using BTSync as their route to that end goal.

This is right. This is wrong.

Simple question. Simple answer. Yes.

How much would you give Bit Torrent Sync, right now, if they gave you an option to pay for software that doesn't require a yearly subscription and allows you to have all of the features of Sync 2.0 Pro? Please, don't drag this thread out into a long and painful discussion of what features matter or don't. Just answer the question. I'll fork over $75, right now.

Was a beta tester for 2.0 and have been running BTSync since the <1.0 days. (Edit: Just looked it up, I signed up for the alpha version on 3/21/13 - so that is almost exactly 2 years that I have been using and evangelizing this software!) I am responsible for the backup solution for a group of researchers at a university and I switched everyone over to BTSync about a year ago because of how convenient it was. It was so convenient that other research groups also adopted the software for their backup solution. Throughout the 2.0 beta testing process, the mods consistently avoided explaining the feature differences between the free/pro version. However, they consistently promised nothing would be taken away. I'll either run 1.4 forever, or find something else. There are a lot of ideas for alternatives being generated in these forums. Sort of similar to all of the great suggestions and ideas brought up during the Sync 2.0 testing - all of which went seemingly ignored/overlooked. Who are the people calling the shots here? One glance at these forums and they should see they are losing out on a ton of opportunity here, simply because they refused to go to a one-time fee as opposed to a subscription model. Offer a one-time fee, unlimited, "home user" option as per the suggestions, or remove the 10 folder limit and let all of us go on happily ever after for free. I'm willing to give you my money, but your ludicrous decision-making is preventing you from earning it. It's time to shit or get off the pot.

No. I brought this up almost immediately as a beta tester, but it was ignored. Sort of like the promise to keep all 1.4 features like unlimited folders still available in the Sync 2.0 Free version.

Yes, or more generally, it would be nice to have both multiple meshes as well as folders that do not belong to any mesh.

@RomanZ First, from you last response, if I understand what you mean correctly, I should be able to edit the 'Default folder location' value in the 'My Devices' setting when my current device is set to 'Available'. This is not the case. Indeed, when I select 'Available', the 'Default folder location' goes grey and is unable to be edited. This sounds more like a bug, unless of course I am misunderstanding your instructions. Please advise. Now, here is a summary of what I understand as my current options for the three numbered points I made in the original post: 1: The directory structure will not be copied by default. (I don't think anyone ever explicitly answered this, so I am going to assume this is the case and give up on you ever answering.) 2: If I want to share a folder from device A with device B, using 'My Devices', then the folder in device B will initially appear in the 'default folder location' of device B and I cannot get around this a priori. However, if I want to move the folder to a different location on device B once it is synced or connected, I need only cut and paste it elsewhere and it will work. (This was a feature many of us did not know was available and I found this out by reading a different thread in the Sync 2.0 forum.) 3. If I share multiple folders from device A and connect device B using 'My Devices', I cannot opt to only see a subset of those folders in device B, currently. You offered a 'Don't show me this folder anymore' feature, which is indeed something I would be interested in. Alas, this is NOT the specific feature I was requesting. In this case, device B is controlling what to sync. Finally, please return to the original post and re-read the bolded feature request paragraph. I requested, to explain this in different words, that I would be able to create a folder on device A that is not automatically added into the 'My Devices' mesh of directories. To (and this is getting painful to repeat so many times) explain again, I would like to create a set of folders and say to myself, "Hey, I would really like those folders to be synced with all of my devices, so I will add them to the my devices mesh". Then, I would like to create another folder and say, "Hey, this really shouldn't be shared on my corporate server, so I just want to share this with my personal devices". For that second directory, I would consider this a 'non-My Devices share' (hence the title of this thread) and I would share it using the keys a la Sync 1.4 and earlier. The difference here is that device A controls what is visible to any other devices linked in 'My Devices'. It would be painful to return to the keys at this point, but it would work. Feature Request #2: Taking the last long and drawn out paragraph into consideration, I would like to request a new feature (something I hinted at in another thread at some point). 'My Devices' is essentially a 'mesh', to use a term you chose. I don't want to be restricted to one mesh. Can you consider adding the feature/functionality to have multiple meshes. Recalling my example above, I would immediately create a 'my personal mesh' and 'my corporate mesh' upon setting up BT Sync on all of my devices.

So, just to be clear, no response means my request is invalid, you are taking it under consideration, or you find it uninteresting? I really was curious to hear your feedback.

Thanks for the reply, but you did not address any of my clearly stated concerns or comments. I understand how the currently normal behavior of 'my devices' operates, but the point of adding this comment is the 'Feature Request' sub-thread was to request a feature rather than be told I'm not using the software properly. I have reached the current limits of the software's capabilities and I would like it to be extended via new features, as I clearly described.

Almost. I want the directory structure to be mirrored to the root of Peer B. Peer B should look like: default path/directory A/subdirectory A. I'm not sure what you mean with your second point about the SyncIgnore file. Care to elaborate? Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I wanted (and I do) to share My Documents/directory A/subdirectory B with device C, then editing the SyncIgnore on Device A would not be a good idea. Instead, I might have to edit the SyncIgnore on both Device B and Device C, correct? I'm not strictly opposed to this, but manually editing files is not something I'm sure more users will want to deal with and so I'm trying to figure out a way to manage this without that hassle. This also scales poorly, if I want to keep adding directories to different devices. To be explicit about my use case, I have the following directory: "My Documents\Other Devices". Inside Other Devices I have the following directories: "Device B", "Device C", "Device D", and "Device E". These connect to a number of other machines I use regularly around my laboratory, all running Sync and all sharing a single directory that gets synced back into my documents. I don't really want to go around and editing SyncIgnore files on all of these machines.