Clone Dropbox with a Raspberry Pi and BTSync
reustle.io
reustle.io
I wouldn't use it sync anything except Truecrypt volumes. :)
We run a system where we have a lot of data on a server that we want to see locally. Edits are made both locally and on the server. At the moment we're using Aerofs to handle the syncing. As a general rule it works really well. The issue we've run into is with pre-seeding new machines (ie, when our spot instance based server get killed). I need to play around a bit more but it's time consuming to get a machine back online and totally synced (there may be a solution to this).
Mostly it's a pain being at the mercy of someone else's magic. Aero is great, except when it isn't - and we don't know the rules. That's a real pain if it's business critical. BTSync looked great - until I realised that it's not opensource either.
There are a few syncing options on there but they don't all tick all the boxes. Unison doesn't trigger on fs events so you have to run it manually. BTSync isn't opensource. Dropbox syncs to their servers and back. With AeroFS you don't always know how it's doing what it's doing.
So far AeroFS has been the winner for us. BTSync definitely looks like it fills the same space though.
Anecdotal, and just one case, but hope someone finds it helpful.
BTsync would often not pick up changes (using osx and linux clients), and/or overwrite new files with an older version. It also had a slow latency when a file did change. As to the open source nature of it, you can supposedly limit its access to the shared servers through configuration, but this caused more sync problems.
These tests made us appreciate the Dropbox implementation even more.
Unfortunately, we need non-cloud syncing for our data, so I wrote a complex cron/rsync/inotify hack with its own issues - but at least we know the limitations and have custom workarounds. Personally, I hope BTsync will mature and be a feasible alternative.
What do you mean by non-cloud syncing? Have you tried Aero? I thought about doing a inotify/unison solution - apparently unison is good at dealing with conflicts and the like.
With all these syncing tools it's the uncertainty that causes issues. You're always worried about what data is going to end up where in the edge cases. As you say - at least with a few scripts glued together you know what's happening (and how to fix it if required).
Looked into Aero, but I am pushing towards an open source alternative to be used, or at least where the implementation is fully controlled/configured by us.
I agree, unison is great and I think is the way forward towards a private dropbox solution.
And the best part is it's open-source: https://github.com/haiwen/seafile
The only feature I miss is not being able to host files publicly so others can download them like Dropbox lets you. I ended up with a workable solution though by installing a seafile client on the seafile server as well. I then used it to sync a particular directory with my PC and made that directory available through nginx.
[0] http://blog.patshead.com/2013/06/self-hosted-cloud-storage-c...
The explanation of "every step of the build" is pretty limited too.
It sounds like he's putting the data on the USB drives from other computers, not from the RPi.
> BitTorrent Sync synchronizes your files using a peer-to-peer (P2P) protocol.
https://www.dropbox.com/help/137/en
Note: Dropbox employee, but this is public information.
Missing from both though is a mobile version. I quite like my Elements (A text editor for Dropbox files).
They have apps for Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android. I've been using it for about two months now with no problems.
On the other hand, it gives you a nice web-based file browser, CardDav, CalDav, and a RSS webapp. And there's a basic iPhone app.
The approach posted somewhere else in the comments[0] seems interesting. Use BTSync for the synchronization, and put ownCloud over that for the web interface and other goodies. I'm tempted to experiment with that.
[0] http://blog.bittorrent.com/2013/05/23/how-i-created-my-own-p...
And we own the data, not Apple.
I highly recommend owncloud.
A couple of days ago I installed btsync and tested syncing one 130 MB big directory. I added it both at the same time to btsync and ownCloud. After about 2 minutes btsync had its copy on the other computer. After one hour ownCloud had cpied about 50 MB to the server when I canceled it and removed the ownCloud dropbox-client from my computers.
I still use all the other stuff to synchronize my calendar/address book between my computers and mobile devises and I even use their RSS backend but with my own Firefox OS app https://marketplace.firefox.com/app/feedmonkey/
My question, still unanswered, remains whether anyone has made btsync work well in a setup where it's used as a shared drive for 10-20 people who interact with many files, though usually not the same file simultaneously (though that happens occasionally, and Dropbox seems to support it...)
Keep using Dropbox.
The remote pi calls back the main pi by ssh. The main pi uses this connection to sync files. So the remote pi can be behind a firewall and no issue.
Im interesting in sharing the setup - and improving it, if anyone interested let me know. Im at padrone.nl
The forgotten gem.
It was a poster child for OCaml. Didn't get the attention it deserved.
I tried out Bitcasa for Mac and it is terrible. My Finder basically stop responding after bitcasa started. I have been working on a simplified version of AWS boto library for glacier, in the goal of making an open source tool like a command line sftp/ftp style access to glacier.
I badly want an open-source sync online storage client and server, cross-platform, with encryption at least om a server side, that I can install on my own VPS or my own host at home.
Online storage became an important element of a digital life, pretty much like Web earlier. I know that Dropbox is an YC company, but I wonder where are Apaches and Nginxes of the online storage?
http://blog.bittorrent.com/2013/05/23/how-i-created-my-own-p...
I use EncFS to encrypt on my laptops/desktops/servers/phones/tablets, and have BTSync sync the encrypted partitions to a machine at home that doesn't have EncFS installed. I'm using an old Mac Mini rather than a 'Pi, but the same principle works - the Mac Mini serves my archive/backup needs for my synced data (it's using software raid1 over two drives for reliability, and does TimeMachine backups to a rotating set of external drives for archiving), but none of the data on the Mini or it's drives is of any use if hacked/stolen, since if doesn't have EncFS or the crypto keys.