setting up Syncthing on Ubuntu – Part 1

Syncthing is an application to sync files across devices. Supports Windows and Linux. Also has an Android App. Since my server is Linux and I work across Windows desktops, this seemed ideal to use.

Setting up syncthing wasn’t too difficult. Lots of tutorials abound. The basic commands involve installing using apt-get.

Add the PGP key

curl -s https://syncthing.net/release-key.txt | sudo apt-key add -

Operations below performed as root

Add the “release” channel to your APT sources:

echo "deb http://apt.syncthing.net/ syncthing release" >> /etc/apt/sources.list

Or just vi into /etc/apt/sources.list and add the following in the end

deb http://apt.syncthing.net/ syncthing release

Install Syncthing

apt-get update
apt-get install syncthing

Rename the service

cd /lib/systemd/system
mv syncthing\@.service syncthing\@<username>.service

(Replace <username> with username)

The syncthing.conf looks like this –

[program:syncthing]
command = /usr/bin/syncthing -home="<home path>/.config/syncthing"
directory = <home path>/syncthing/
user = <username>
autostart=true
autorestart = true
environment = STNORESTART="1", HOME="<home path>"
stderr_logfile=/var/log/syncthing.err.log
stdout_logfile=/var/log/syncthing.out.log