Wishlist (Archive)


aurika

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I just got up and running with the Alpha and am really enjoying it so far. I am a Linux user, so I am interacting with SyncApp through the WebUI. I have two features I would love for the WebUI.

  • Password protection (right now I can connect to a remote machine with ip:port/gui, which is great, but I'm not sure I would want anyone to have access to this).
  • A button to generate a list of directories and their corresponding secret keys. I've set up about 20 directories, and manually copying the list of directories and keys is cumbersome.

Thanks!

Edited by GreatMarko
It's possible to protect the WebUI with a password
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Hi all,
Thanks you very much guys for the hard work! the application is great!!

My whishlist:
1 - add the ability to vote for the wishes.
2 - Have like a buffer on the Internet to synchronize with a computer turned off. For example, I want to share between my computers 10gb, would be good to have the ability to set up a buffer (dropbox public/private folders, public/private folder google drive, etc) so that if I have disconnected computers, the information is going to be uploaded to these accounts ( let's say 5gb ), then in the other side, when I connect the other computers, they are going to start the sync from those accounts ( 5gb ).
That way two computers can be sync even if they are connected at different times.
3 - The ability to manage my tokens from a webpage.
4 - Have the option to encrypt the folders that are being synchronized so that only I can see its content when I want (with user and pass), but keeping the sync working in background.
5 - Having the option to choose how much space ( and bandwidth ) I want to share on my hard drive for use by other people, then the program can duplicate and distribute the information to other people ( doing an encription ). this way we can give a lot of free space to many people if we all share and have an online backup of our files.

hope you like them!

Edited by GreatMarko
Item 4 is now available through the use of "Encrypted Nodes"
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SyncApp Community Edition v SyncApp Privacy Edition

  • Version support
  • An encrypt key as well as a folder secret, so that I can use a friend's PC as the target sync, and have a utility which I can enter the encrypt key for browse and restore, Either by a file, version of a file, folder, or version of a folder etc
  • Schedule control - with definable up/dl ratios
  • Folder priority would be "nice"
  • Have a closed code component or Privacy edition that enables the "encrypt key as well as a folder secret" functionality
  • For every target deployment of the "encrypt key as well for a folder secret" a license key also has to be entered, based on the public keys that both the "source" pc and the "john doe" pc target generates
  • therefore have a license model of licensing the "john doe" back up target(s) at a nominal one-off fee of say at the rate of $XX per target, payable only in Bitcoin.

hurrah time for tea!

Edited by GreatMarko
Version support has since been added. "Encrypted Nodes" have since been introduced. Struck-through items are suggestions which now have their own dedicated threads in the Feature Requests forum
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First, awesome! I appreciate that most everything on my wishlist has already been asked, but it's all just a bunch of +1's

- A file serve only mechanism, where local copies are not kept, but files can still be downloaded with the benefits of the bittorrent protocol via WebDAV or ordinary web interface. That way a user is not limited to the hard drive size of his smallest computer.

- Per computer priority settings that allow user to maintain file sync capability, but use less bandwidth on slower or data limited connections. This is not the same as straight bandwidth limits, as setting the upload rate to 0 would disable syncing completely, but any higher setting would pull data from a limited computer when there are copies available from other places.

- The ability to host data in incomplete and encrypted form, providing higher storage efficiency (think RAID5), more redundancy, and higher performance with the use of otherwise unused free space. This is akin to the idea of donating free hard drive space without having access to another user's files. Could be implemented using a global secret.

- Versioning, both for backup and bandwidth efficiency purposes

- Transparent handling of the nested folder issue

I realize these concepts that may seem simple actually mean massive amounts of extra complexity. This is just my feeling on how this app would best serve everyone's needs.

Keep up the great work!

Edited by GreatMarko
"Encrypted Nodes" are now available allowing you to host encrypted data. Versioning has also since been introduced
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Hi all,

My whishlist:

1 - add the ability to vote for the wishes.

There kinda already is in a way - just click the "Like This" button at the bottom of relevant forum posts! - When the BitTorrent Sync team browse this forum (which they regularly do), they'll be able to gauge how popular certain suggestions are based on how many "likes" a post has!

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+1 for Proxy support (my number one as I would like to sync files from inside corp network to my

+1 for windows service

+1 for android client

Also for option to host own tracker server would be a nice to have to make the whole system completely closed.

I must say, A really great job... I have synced all my photo albums with my VPS and i'm able to view it all through a nice web interface using Ajaxplorer.

Thanks to everyone involved.

Edited by GreatMarko
An Android client is now available. Struck-through items are suggestions which now have their own dedicated threads in the Feature Requests forum
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I'd like more documentation on .SyncIgnore. I tried it out and expected it to work like .gitignore. I can't tell from the documentation how the file should be formatted, other than it should use 'utf-8'. It doesn't seem to do what I want. I think an example for the documentation would help. Here's what I would like to do:

$ cat ~/.SyncIgnoresomebigfile.isotmp/Projects/ProjectOne/*.log

Basically, I want the ability to ignore files according to patterns and those patterns should apply through the directory tree like they are with .gitignore files. This is basically what I've learned to do with rsync which is what I'd love to replace with btsync. Edited by GreatMarko
Wildcard ? and * characters are now supported in .SyncIgnore, and documentation has been improved accordingly
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I'd like the ability to execute program hooks when a file is synced. After a file is changed/created, execute program X. This is useful for batch programs in a distributed environment.

Edited by GreatMarko
An API is available which could be used to achieve this
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Shared secrets are simple to understand and simple to use, but they're often A Very Bad Thing when it comes to good security, in part because secret distribution is not easily done in a safe way. It is very unpleasant to clean up after one participant's copy of the shared secret key is exposed to the wrong people, whether deliberately or accidentally. For example, if 10 different people are sharing a collection of files via BitTorrent Sync and one of those people lose their laptop to a thief, the remaining 9 have to quickly change that secret key to a new one they all agree upon. There isn't always a safe way to exchange that new secret quickly.

What I really want to see is support for public/private SSH-like keys as an optional alternative to the shared secret key solution. Folks who don't understand how to use such keys don't have to use that option. In the above scenario then, the remaining 9 users will simply delete the public key from their systems that belongs to the compromised 10th person - no new secret key has to be devised and distributed.

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I echo the wish of those who want the option to restrict which networks BitTorrent Sync will make use of. For example, I would like to prevent a laptop from using a high data cost cell network when tethered to a cell phone.

The same wish applies to the Android version, for obvious reasons. Oh, perhaps I should mention that I really, really want to see an Android version of BitTorrent Sync very soon :-)

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I second the many wishes for building in an rsync-like algorithm in order to reduce unnecessary data traffic. Available networks aren't always cheap to use either in time or money. I know this isn't particularly helpful when sharing something like photos, but it surely is when sync'ing huge documents that are constantly getting small localized changes (eg. university thesis).

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I wish for a way to sync a local unencrypted folder to a remote system on which the files will remain encrypted so that the remote system's users cannot decrypt the files, see any of their filenames, or even know how many files there are. The remote system should simply see their copy of the sync'ed folder as a single file. I think the implications include some kind of block-oriented encryption with some rsync-like behaviour for efficiency, but I haven't given the implementation much thought.

As it stands, I could use a TrueCrypt volume locally, but any minor change results in the entire volume being transferred. Obviously this makes no sense.

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Couple of things;

  • The ability to not delete files at the destination if deleted at the source while using one way sync. Would be handy then as a simple backup/archive program.
  • The ability to take all the files you want to copy to the remote computer first, ie. using a USB HDD, then adding the synced folder. The advantage here is that you don't have to do a first large sync.
  • The 'remove' shared folder, needs a confirmation button.
  • A portable APP for windows, so no need to install anything

Thx.

Edited by GreatMarko
You can copy files across yourself before syncing - that's fine! The "remove" button now has a confirmation. Struck-through items are suggestions which now have their own dedicated threads in the Feature Requests forum
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hope to get something.

1. web interface access. so i don't have to download the app to access file on a public computer.

2. remote access. i really want to access file WITHOUT downloading to my local hard drive. im using ssd so local space is limited. but my server has much larger space. so if i can access my files without download it while i have internet access, i would be able to use far more spaces.

3. account system..... remembering secret is so difficult. a account system helps.

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You have Windows, MacOS, and Linux ... but no FreeBSD love?

Would absolutely love you guys to death if you provided a binary for FreeBSD 8.3!

And I say FreeBSD 8.3 specifically because that's what FreeNAS 8 is using.

Running the binary from a startup script is just fine, and additional future features could include adapting for the FreeNAS plug-in system and allowing user/group permissions sync into various ZFS datasets. For example, say I have 5 users on the FreeNAS, each with their own dataset, it would be nice if btsync could keep the proper permissions for files transferred to each of those datasets (i.e., files into user1's dataset should chown to user1:user1).

Right now I have a FreeNAS dataset mounted to a Linux VM, and btsync running on that Linux VM to a shared folder on the mountpoint. It works, but involves two systems and transferring all of the data twice (once to the Linux VM host, and then a second time to the FreeNAS mountpoint).

btw, FreeNAS doesn't include the FreeBSD Linuxulator compatibility kernel module to directly load the Linux ELF binary. I also read elsewhere in the forums that folks were unsuccessful getting btsync to load on a full FreeBSD system due to lack of a specific call in the Linuxulator that btsync needs. Rumors are there's an alpha patch to FreeBSD 9 that enables that call. But again, FreeNAS's FreeBSD 8.3 doesn't include the Linuxulator kernel module, so no choice there but to have a FreeBSD-native binary available.

Thanks guys! You rock!

Edited by GreatMarko
FreeBSD builds have since been made available
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Hi, thanks for making public this very excellent idea!

I am a linux user and have just taken it for a test drive.

A few ideas i'd like to suggest.

1. A Client ID randomly generated by the client at time of installation, this is so that if a sync request comes in, we can choose to accept or decline the request to sync that device if desired. As this gains popularity I can certianly see people randomly generating keys, and seeing if they get to sync from anyone :-p. By default i've noticed all genrated keys are uppercase alphanum, it is a reasonable keyspace... approx 36^32 ... but I have a sneakiing suspicion one could be found. hopefully people will use strong custom keys.

But the key could equaly well get passed to a 3rd party and i'd like to be able to have a list of ID's i'll allow to connect.

2. Username / Password settings within the webgui for logging into it... glad to see it exists as a config file option though.

I haven't read the full thread here, my apologies if this has already been suggested :)

Also I understand is it alpha, i really like what I see so far, keep up the good work!

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Hi, thanks for making public this very excellent idea!

I am a linux user and have just taken it for a test drive.

A few ideas i'd like to suggest.

1. A Client ID randomly generated by the client at time of installation, this is so that if a sync request comes in, we can choose to accept or decline the request to sync that device if desired. As this gains popularity I can certianly see people randomly generating keys, and seeing if they get to sync from anyone :-p. By default i've noticed all genrated keys are uppercase alphanum, it is a reasonable keyspace... approx 36^32 ... but I have a sneakiing suspicion one could be found. hopefully people will use strong custom keys.

But the key could equaly well get passed to a 3rd party and i'd like to be able to have a list of ID's i'll allow to connect.

2. Username / Password settings within the webgui for logging into it... glad to see it exists as a config file option though.

I haven't read the full thread here, my apologies if this has already been suggested :)

Also I understand is it alpha, i really like what I see so far, keep up the good work!

I don't think number 2 is a valid item, it just leaves security holes. If you need to change it, you change it via the configuration, not via the one object that is probably compromised which is why you're changing the password in the first place.

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I don't think number 2 is a valid item, it just leaves security holes. If you need to change it, you change it via the configuration, not via the one object that is probably compromised which is why you're changing the password in the first place.

It is more of a convienice request than anything. when i first fired it up i was a bit puzzled there was no credentials required, and nowhere in the webgui to set them.

Either way if the password is compromised i don't see how making the password change only available by cli helps anything... if somone gains access to the gui, they have all the keys, can sync what they like, and potentially even overwrite the data on synced devices (yay for the .trash). If they change your gui pass, you can always reset it via the config file, but seriously, the damage will already be done.

Personally... if i end up putting this into use, the webgui would be bound to 127.0.0.1, just don't sync anything too sensitive, and if there is some important stuff, put it in LUKS or TrueCrypt containers.

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- support for / a list of command line arguments which can get used on all platforms (planned API might also be fine)

Indeed, for linux if we could manage btsync via command line it would be great, allowing us to manage it through ssh when doing remote control (because with the web interface you want to restrict the access and the only way I found was to proxy with apache and add an authentification and I don't have a web server installed on my NAS).

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First off, awesome program.

Small feature but helpful (in my opinion).

A "paused" version of the BTsyn icon (in the tray on mac) so you can see without clicking-in if you have paused the syncing.

Also (and im aware this can be done with different programs but it might be cool to have an added feature) in which you can remotely "nudge" ComputerA and allow for resumed syncing in case it went to sleep. (ComputerA of course being the one where files are being pulled from)

Maybe ComputerA first has to be made sensitive to nudges with a tick box?

-b

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