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BTSYNC DESKTOP GUI FOR ARCH, DEBIAN, UBUNTU AND OTHER DERIVED DISTRIBUTIONS If you are using Arch Linux, Ubuntu, Debian, Raspian or other derived distributions based on Debian and you are searching for an easy way to deploy BitTorrent Sync on your systems, this topic is definitively for you. Here you will find information about a family of easy to install packages that offer both a solution for the need of typical server/cloud operators as for interactive users. The desktop gui package is explicitly intended for desktop usage and provide a user experience similar to BitTorrent Sync on Windows or Mac OSX by still giving the user the possibility to customise his installation if he has special needs. This topic covers only the desktop user package. If you are searching for the server package, please look here. THE SOFTWARE AND THE PACKAGES ARE UNOFFICIAL AND NOT THE WORK OF BITTORRENT® INC. PLEASE DO NOT CONTACT THE BITTORRENT® INC. SUPPORT WITH QUESTIONS OR PROBLEMS RELATED TO THE USE OF THE PACKAGES. YOU WILL FIND COMPETENT HELP AND SUPPORT IN THIS FORUM THREAD INSTALLATION ON ARCH LINUX The Arch Linux Package in the AUR is maintained by Martin Wimpress (@flexiondotorg). The package is named btsync-gui and can be installed from the AUR using your favourite package manager. e.g.: if you are using yaourt: sudo yaourt -S btsync-guiWhen you have finished installing, you can skip the next section below and move directly to the USAGE NOTES. INSTALLATION ON DEBIAN, UBUNTU, LINUX MINT, RASPBIAN OR OTHER DEBIAN DERIVATES The most easy and fast way to install the repository is to paste that at a terminal prompt: sh -c "$(curl -fsSL http://debian.yeasoft.net/add-btsync-repository.sh)"The script explains what it will do and then pauses before it does it asking for your permission. If you encounter any problems or prefer to do it manually, please look here. Now update the package index and install btsync-gui by pasting that at a terminal prompt: `which sudo` apt-get update`which sudo` apt-get install btsync-guiOn some systems the AppIndicator library is not available or maybe you do not want to use it. In this case, you may want to install the GTK only version of the BitTorrent Sync GUI instead: `which sudo` apt-get update`which sudo` apt-get install btsync-gui-gtkPlease keep in mind, that this will work only on GTK based desktops. If you install it on other desktops like Unity, btsync-gui-gtk will start but you will see nothing and you have no control over the application! Install btsync-gui-gtk only if you know exactly what you are doing!!! If this happened, you can fix it by installing btsync-gui and rebooting your system. After the successful installation, you have to initially start BitTorrent Sync. You have various possibilities to do this: Log out and log in again. Since BitTorrent Sync GUI is registered in the autostart group, it will start as soon as you log in.Select BitTorrent Sync from the menu or the default application launcher of your desktop.USAGE NOTES The BitTorrent Sync GUI aims to be a clone of the original BitTorrent Sync application on Windows and Mac OSX and to replace on long term the legacy package btsync-user. The GUI provides two modes of operation: Standalone Mode: This is the default mode. When the GUI starts, an underlaying BitTorrent Sync agent is started too providing an overall experience similar to the GUI applications on Windows or Mac OSX.Client Mode: The GUI can be started from the command line with parameters specifying a connection to a remote BitTorrent Sync system. In this case, the GUI does not start a local BitTorrent Sync agent, but connects to an already running agent at a remote location. This will work only, if the remote agent has activated API access by specifying a valid API key in the configuration file.The behaviour of the GUI can be influenced by specifying various options on the command line. There is also a way to make some options persistent across restarts making it superfluous to specify the options each time you start the GUI. You can get detailed help about the command line options by invoking the man page: man btsync-guiHere you find an overview of the available options: usage: btsync-gui [-h] [--log {CRITICAL,ERROR,WARNING,INFO,DEBUG}] [--host HOST] [--port PORT] [--username USERNAME] [--password PASSWORD] [--bindui BINDUI] [--webui] [--savedefaults] [--cleardefaults]optional arguments: -h, --help show this help message and exit --log {CRITICAL,ERROR,WARNING,INFO,DEBUG} Sets the logging level. By default the logging level is WARNING --host HOST Hostname for the connection to BitTorrent Sync. If not specified, a local BitTorrent Sync agent will be launched. --port PORT Optional port number for the connection to BitTorrent Sync. If not specified, port 8888 is taken for a connection to a remote BitTorrent Sync agent or (8999 + uid) is taken when creating a locally lauched agent. This option can be made persistent for local agents with --savedefaults --username USERNAME Optional user name for connecting to a remote BitTorrent Sync agent or username to use when creating a locally launched agent. This option can be made persistent for local agents with --savedefaults --password PASSWORD Optional password for connecting to a remote BitTorrent Sync agent or username to use when creating a locally launched agent. This option can be made persistent for local agents with --savedefaults --bindui BINDUI Optional bind address for the Web UI of a locally created BitTorrent Sync agent. By default the agent binds to 127.0.0.1. If you want the Web UI of the agent to be reachable by other computers, specify one of the available IP addresses of this computer or "all" to bind to all available adapters. This option can be made persistent for local agents with --savedefaults --webui Include the Web UI in the menu. This option can be made persistent with --savedefaults --savedefaults If specified, the optionally supplied credentials, bind address and port will be stored as default in the application preferences and used when launching a local BitTorrent Sync agent. --cleardefaults If specified, all internally stored credentials, bind address and port information will be cleared from the application preferences.The usage of the command line options will be explained by some examples below. STANDALONE MODE By default there is no way to access the Web UI provided by the BitTorrent Sync agent, since the agent itself defines at each start random credentials to protect the system. If you still want to access the Web UI, you can activate an extended menu option by specifying --webui on the command line. You will then have an additional menu item, that invokes a browser and connects you to the Web UI. If you want to make this setting persistent, you can invoke the following command from the console: btsync-gui --webui --savedefaultsFrom now you will not need to specify it again at each start. Sometimes it may happen, that you want to access your running BitTorrent Sync agent from another computer via the Web UI or a btsync-gui in Client Mode. By default this is not possible, because of two reasons: The BitTorrent Sync agent binds the administration interface only to the loopback adapter making it possible to connect only from the same machine (This is a security feature).The BitTorrent Sync agent is started at every time with randomly generated credentials. Without knowing them, it is impossible to access the administration interface of the agent (This is also a security feature).For users that want to access their system from another computer, there is still a possibility to configure the GUI in a way that makes the agent accessible also from other computers. In order to do so, the following parameters must be changed: The BitTorrent Sync agent must bind its administrative interface to all adapters of the system or an adapter reachable from outside.The BitTorrent Sync agent must bind its administrative interface to a well-known port. By default the port is the sum of 8999 and the uid of the user.The credentials must be set to something known.The GUI can be launched in such a mode, by specifying the following parameters: btsync-gui --bindui 0.0.0.0 --port 10888 --username Leopoldo --password SuperSecretThis configures the BitTorrent Sync agent to bind on all interfaces on port 10888 and to be accessible with the user name "Leopoldo" and the password "SuperSecret". Also these settings can be made persistent by adding the option --savedefaults WARNING: as every comfort function, you pay the comfort by lowering the security. Remember: the product of comfort and security is a constant. You cannot increase both. CLIENT MODE In client mode, the GUI can be used to access a remotely running BitTorrent Sync agent. The only prerequisites are that the remote BitTorrent Sync agent is reachable from your computer, you know the credentials and the API access is enabled on the remote agent. You can also use the GUI to connect to another machine where a BitTorrent Sync GUI is running in standalone mode, if you have configured access possibilities like shown in the example above. The connection to a remote BitTorrent Sync agent is done by entering the following command: btsync-gui --host myserver.example.com --port 8888 --username Leopoldo --password SuperSecretIf you are able to access the Web UI of a remote BitTorrent Sync system, you should know everything you need to also launch successfully the GUI. Since the connection to remote systems is slower, you will notice the following limitations: The refresh rate is slower. It adapts dynamically to the overall performance.During the status refreshes, the GUI may be a bit unresponsive.There are no local file system checks, when you add a new folder. You must be sure, that you enter a valid path on the remote machine.Some features are disabled (Pause/resume, Enable/Disable Debug) since they are not feasible on remote systems.COMPATIBILITY The GUI packages are available for the same architectures as released by BitTorrent Inc.: i386 - Intel/AMD 32 Bitamd64 - Intel/AMD 64 Bitarmel - ARM EABIarmhf - ARM hard floatpowerpc - PowerPCThe GUI packages have been tested on the following distributions: Debian Wheezy with Gnome DesktopUbuntu Raring 13.04 with Unity DesktopLinux Mint Petra with Cinnamon DesktopOther users have reported successful installations on: Xubuntu Saucy 13.10 with OpenBox+Tint2Debian Jessie with KDEUbuntu Trusty 14.04 with Cinnamon, MATE and OpenBoxArch Linux with MATEThe GUI package has also been released for other Linux distributions: Arch Linux: Packages can be found in the AURWANTED Maintainers for other Linux distributions beeing able to write a suitable packaging for their favourite distribution: Centos/RHEL (rpm)Fedora (rpm)SLES(rpm)GentooNow it's up to you to test it and give me lots of feedback in order to extend this list. Any related feedback is highly appreciated. BUG REPORTS, CONTRIBUTION AND SOURCES If you want to contribute to the development of the packages or if you are curious how this all works, you may find the current sources, the deployment scripts and packaging on GitHub. If you want to contribute to the localisation by translating changed strings or by adding support for your favourite language, you may join the localisation team on POEditor.com. If you have experienced a reproducible issue that is related to the gui or the packaging and not to BitTorrent Sync itself you are strongly encouraged to open an issue on the project's GitHub Page. Issues related to the native functionality of BitTorrent Sync should instead be discussed by creating a new topic or partecipating to an already existing topic in the BitTorrent Sync Forum.

Hello, I'm running Linux Mint 14 with Mate as the desktop environment. BTSync seems to be running fine, but it's been a couple of days since the tray icon of BTSync has disappeared. I've also tried killing the btsync processes and launch the program again, but nothing changed. It used to show up the fist few days of use. Any suggestions? How to debug this issue? Thanks