Btsync On Cloned Virtual Machines

[casacota]

Preparing a workshop I'm setting up a virtual machine for members to play with. As it is a collaborative project, it would be interesting to share all a folder. Every member will have a copy from the virtual machine with all needed programs installed (it's complex, that is the reason to use virtual machines instead of installations on real ones, specially due to the reduced IT skills from the majority, so we can be sure the correct settings are applied).

But, will BTSync work with that setup? That is identical machines, with the same parameters and the same port, some of them under the same WAN IP on a school network.

Before I try and let BTSync run into problems, better to ask!

[goli]

Hey there.

 

As far as I know, the sync apps main data folder (not the actual payload data folders containing files to sync!) contains somesthing like the "instance identity". If there are different computers having the same "identity", they might refuse talking to each other because of thinking they talking to themselfse.

 

I don't know if there is an API method to reset this thing like the "sysprep". I would suggest to not clone btsync. You can either install btsync after cloning the computers once per computer, or you can just clean the sync app main data folder. Both will result in making each node destinct.

 

If you're using Windows, the folder should be located at "%APPDATA%\BitTorrent Sync".

If you're on Linux, the folder should be either on ~/.sync, or wherever you decided to put it when launching btsync.

 

As you can see, you usually have one folder per user. Which is nice, because btsync in its current state is designed to start when a user signs in and to stop when the user signs out. So in case you have a proper user management and each of your students has his own account with unique account names, you can completely ignore this because he will get his own "BitTorrent Sync" folder the first time he signs in.

 

As far as I know, this particular folder contains every configuration btsync uses. This goes down to which shares are connected and which ports to use.

 

You might either want to provide a proper "how to set up btsync" tutorial for your students or search for the API part. I don't know if the API thing is available for the public or still restricted to a closted circle of enthusiasts. But if you want to make a fresh, non-configured user account start with your desired btsync configuration (and that's certainly the way to go, no matter if you install btsync afterwards, remove the "BitTorrent Sync" folder post-deployment or have distinct user account names which all results in the same setup: fresh, un-setupped btsync), using API mechanisms would be my best bet.

 

Regards,

Stephan.

[casacota]

Thanks for your explanations!

 

I've to test the behaviour with cloned machines with different accounts, but given the skills of the students I'm pretty sure that there will be duplicated names and passwords. I'll try if that works or not.

 

Regards

 

Pere

[goli]

Hey Pere.

 

So you plan to deploy independent standalone VMs with no central account management? Then you might run into trouble -- or not, depending on how you set the VMs up.

 

The thing is: If you have a central account management (Active Directoy would be the usual situation in case of having a Windows environment), then the setup would be the following:

* You start the VM and set it up using your "Administrator" account.

* You install btsync as "Administrator", but since btsync is not a service but a "Autorun" tool, that does not mean anything.

* The first time the students log into their personal accounts (no matter what they are named, as long as those are not the "Administrator"), btsync initializes itself with an empty configuration.

 

It doesn't matter if all students use the very same Windows logon username. Not at all. The important thing is: The account your students sign in needs to have no btsync configuration (although the Administrator account on the same machine has, they are independent and do not influence each other). This will make btsync to create an empty environment "on first start". And this very situation is what makes your btsync processes individual.

 

As soon as you have btsync on different computers use copied sync directories (the "%APPDATA%\BitTorrent Sync" I talked about), this might cause touble.

 

It doesn't matter at all what your user accounts on the machine is named. They can have equal names or different ones. That doesn't matter at all. What matters is the fact that the "BitTorrent Sync" directories must be based on common content.

 

As explained, this would be the case as soon as you have e.g. an Active Directory and distinct accounts. Before your students sign in, there is not the slightest indication of the students account on a particular VM. The account on the local computer/vm gets created the first time they sign in. And that's the fact that makes btsync start with a fresh database.

 

But would be nice if the Bittorrent staff may answer here. That's in fact something every company deployment has to deal with: Centrally managed sync configuration based on user accounts. So maybe they can give you some other hints then pointing you to difficulties the current public version has.

 

You also might want to search this forum. There is something related to corporate/company/business. I don't know its exact state. I just added my name to the "want to be informend and participate in discusions" form the BitTorrent guys published here some months ago. But I completely lost track about that field. I don't know if I'm still on this list, have been dropped or if the list still is inatcive due to no hard facts to be announced publicly.

 

Kind regards,

Stephan.

 

[edit]

 

Actually, that's the form I talked about. Maybe you want to add yourself there and mention your use case? It's like "central deloyment of cloned vms having preconfigured btsync settings to share data" or something.

 

http://forum.bittorrent.com/topic/23678-interested-in-sync-enterprise-beta/

[casacota]

Thanks for the tips!

 

I'll follow these steps on a couple of sandbox machines, if that works it is great. If not (probably because I make some mistake, I'm musician and meteorologist, not IT) I'll setup an FTP server and leave the students do some manual work!

 

Thanks for all.

 

Ben cordialment

 

Pere

 

* You start the VM and set it up using your "Administrator" account.

* You install btsync as "Administrator", but since btsync is not a service but a "Autorun" tool, that does not mean anything.

* The first time the students log into their personal accounts (no matter what they are named, as long as those are not the "Administrator"), btsync initializes itself with an empty configuration.