Limiting Sync To Specific Clients...


sup3rior

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Hi,

Have tried searching the forums for info on this, without luck so here goes...

 

Lets say I have a scenario where I want to restrict a specific Sync client (Client A) so it can only communicate with another specific client (Client B), which in turn then can communicate with the rest (Client C, D, E and so on).

Updating a file on client E would then sync between all clients except client A which would receive its update when client B had received it.

 

Looking at the configuration options in the Sync client (Client A) I would think that disabling the "Use relay if needed" and then restricting the firewall so it can only talk to Client B would do the trick.

 

Am I way of on how to achieve this?

 

 

Regards,

Anders

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I want to restrict a specific Sync client (Client A) so it can only communicate with another specific client (Client B), which in turn then can communicate with the rest (Client C, D, E and so on).

Updating a file on client E would then sync between all clients except client A which would receive its update when client B had received it.

 

Am I way of on how to achieve this?

Think of Sync as creating a "Mesh" network (i.e. nodes are all connected to each other). Therefore, it's not possible to Sync A to B to C. Rather, A can sync with B and C, B can sync with A and C, and C can sync with A and B (i.e. they all sync with each other)

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Think of Sync as creating a "Mesh" network (i.e. nodes are all connected to each other). Therefore, it's not possible to Sync A to B to C. Rather, A can sync with B and C, B can sync with A and C, and C can sync with A and B (i.e. they all sync with each other)

Thats in essence how Bittorrent works, that I know.

I was more looking for a way to restrict a single client in the above described scenario, but from your answer I would guess that it cannot be done...

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I had the same problem. My solution is to make each machine an independent device, then create manual links between those devices that I want to link and sync. I hope the developers can come up with a more elegant solution, as I'm sure many users will want to have the benefits of a mesh network with an option to link some devices but exclude others.

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I had the same problem. My solution is to make each machine an independent device, then create manual links between those devices that I want to link and sync. I hope the developers can come up with a more elegant solution, as I'm sure many users will want to have the benefits of a mesh network with an option to link some devices but exclude others.

 

When you say link manually, what do you mean by that?

 

Based on other forum posts it is my understanding that you cannot add the same folder more than once to the Sync client...

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@sup3rior

There is a way to achieve what you want, though it requires some advanced network configuration and is pretty much inconvenient to support. Usually, Sync has several ways to find other peers:

1. Contact tracker server

2. Send multicast packets to specific group to discover clients in LAN

3. Participate DHT to find clients

4. Contacting manually defined hosts.

 

While #1 to #3 tend to form "mesh" of all peers (i.e. each peer knows and talks to all other peers), the option #4 means peer is going to contact some host (by IP or by DNS name) you predefined manually. So, your solution would be to disable #1..3 and put required IPs / DNS names in predefined hosts. As a result, you can shape whatever network topology you want, though it is rather hard to maintain (especially, if some dynamic IPs are present).

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@sup3rior, what version of Sync are you using?

 

Moe's last reply references (and and I suspect panoptes' reply also does) functionality that is only present in the forthcoming Sync 2.0 (which is currently in alpha, so you may not be using it)

Whoops! Yes, you're correct! Sorry.

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@sup3rior

There is a way to achieve what you want, though it requires some advanced network configuration and is pretty much inconvenient to support. Usually, Sync has several ways to find other peers:

1. Contact tracker server

2. Send multicast packets to specific group to discover clients in LAN

3. Participate DHT to find clients

4. Contacting manually defined hosts.

 

While #1 to #3 tend to form "mesh" of all peers (i.e. each peer knows and talks to all other peers), the option #4 means peer is going to contact some host (by IP or by DNS name) you predefined manually. So, your solution would be to disable #1..3 and put required IPs / DNS names in predefined hosts. As a result, you can shape whatever network topology you want, though it is rather hard to maintain (especially, if some dynamic IPs are present).

So if I disable Relay, Tracker, DHT as well as LAN and then manually define the hosts I want it to synchronize with I should be able to achieve it.

 

I will do some testing to see how it works, thanks...

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