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NAME

       syncthing-faq - Frequently Asked Questions

WHAT IS SYNCTHING?

       Syncthing  is an application that lets you synchronize your files across multiple devices.
       This  means  the  creation,  modification  or  deletion  of  files  on  one  machine  will
       automatically be replicated to your other devices. We believe your data is your data alone
       and you deserve to choose where it is stored. Therefore Syncthing  does  not  upload  your
       data  to the cloud but exchanges your data across your machines as soon as they are online
       at the same time.

IS IT “SYNCTHING”, “SYNCTHING” OR “SYNCTHING”?

       It’s Syncthing, although the command and source repository is spelled syncthing so it  may
       be  referred  to  in  that  way  as  well.  It’s definitely not SyncThing, even though the
       abbreviation st is used in some circumstances and file names.

HOW DOES SYNCTHING DIFFER FROM BITTORRENT/RESILIO SYNC?

       The two are different and not related. Syncthing and  BitTorrent/Resilio  Sync  accomplish
       some of the same things, namely syncing files between two or more computers.

       BitTorrent   Sync,   now   called   Resilio  Sync,  is  a  proprietary  peer-to-peer  file
       synchronization tool available for Windows,  Mac,  Linux,  Android,  iOS,  Windows  Phone,
       Amazon Kindle Fire and BSD. [1] Syncthing is an open source file synchronization tool.

       Syncthing  uses  an  open and documented protocol, and likewise the security mechanisms in
       use are well defined and visible in the source code. Resilio Sync  uses  an  undocumented,
       closed protocol with unknown security properties.

       [1]  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resilio_Sync

WHAT THINGS ARE SYNCED?

       The following things are always synchronized:

       • File Contents

       • File Modification Times

       The following may be synchronized or not, depending:

       • File  Permissions  (When supported by file system. On Windows, only the read only bit is
         synchronized.)

       • Symbolic Links (synced, except on Windows, but never followed.)

       The following are not synchronized;

       • File or Directory Owners and Groups (not preserved)

       • Directory Modification Times (not preserved)

       • Hard Links (followed, not preserved)

       • Extended Attributes, Resource Forks (not preserved)

       • Windows, POSIX or NFS ACLs (not preserved)

       • Devices, FIFOs, and Other Specials (ignored)

       • Sparse file sparseness (will become sparse, when supported by the OS & filesystem)

IS SYNCHRONIZATION FAST?

       Syncthing segments files into pieces, called blocks, to transfer data from one  device  to
       another.  Therefore, multiple devices can share the synchronization load, in a similar way
       to the torrent protocol. The more devices you have online, the faster an additional device
       will receive the data because small blocks will be fetched from all devices in parallel.

       Syncthing  handles renaming files and updating their metadata in an efficient manner. This
       means that  renaming  a  large  file  will  not  cause  a  retransmission  of  that  file.
       Additionally,  appending  data  to  existing  large files should be handled efficiently as
       well.

       Temporary files are used to store partial data downloaded from  other  devices.  They  are
       automatically  removed whenever a file transfer has been completed or after the configured
       amount of time which is set in the configuration file (24 hours by default).

WHY IS THE SYNC SO SLOW?

       When troubleshooting a slow sync, there are a number of things to check.

       First of all, verify that you are not connected via a relay. In the “Remote Devices”  list
       on  the right side of the GUI, double check that you see “Address: <some address>” and not
       “Relay: <some address>”.  [image]

       If you are connected via a relay, this  is  because  a  direct  connection  could  not  be
       established.  Double  check  and follow the suggestions in firewall-setup to enable direct
       connections.

       Second, if one of the devices is a very low powered machine (a Raspberry Pi, or  a  phone,
       or  a  NAS, or similar) you are likely constrained by the CPU on that device. See the next
       question for reasons Syncthing likes a faster CPU.  You can verify this by looking at  the
       CPU  utilization  in  the GUI. If it is constantly at or close to 100%, you are limited by
       the CPU speed. In some cases a lower CPU usage number can also indicate being  limited  by
       the CPU - for example constant 25% usage on a four core CPU likely means that Syncthing is
       doing something that is not parallellizable and thus limited to a single CPU core.

       Third, verify that the network connection is OK. Tools such as iperf or just  an  Internet
       speed test can be used to verify the performance here.

WHY DOES IT USE SO MUCH CPU?

       1. When  new  or  changed files are detected, or Syncthing starts for the first time, your
          files are hashed using SHA-256.

       2. Data that is sent over the network is compressed (optionally) and  encrypted  (always).
          When receiving data it must be decrypted and then (if compressed) decompressed.

       3. There  is  a  certain amount of housekeeping that must be done to track the current and
          available versions of each file in the index database.

       4. By default Syncthing uses periodic scanning every hour when  watching  for  changes  or
          every  minute  if  that’s  disabled  to  detect file changes. This means checking every
          file’s modification time and comparing it to the database. This can cause spikes of CPU
          usage for large folders.

       Hashing,  compression  and  encryption cost CPU time. Also, using the GUI causes a certain
       amount of extra CPU usage to calculate the summary data it  presents.  Note  however  that
       once things are in sync CPU usage should be negligible.

       To  minimize  the  impact  of  this, Syncthing attempts to lower the process priority when
       starting up.

       To further limit the amount of CPU used when syncing and  scanning,  set  the  environment
       variable  GOMAXPROCS  to the maximum number of CPU cores Syncthing should use at any given
       moment. For example, GOMAXPROCS=2 on a machine with four cores will limit Syncthing to  no
       more than half the system’s CPU power.

SHOULD I KEEP MY DEVICE IDS SECRET?

       No.  The IDs are not sensitive. Given a device ID it’s possible to find the IP address for
       that device, if global discovery is enabled on it. Knowing the device ID doesn’t help  you
       actually establish a connection to that device or get a list of files, etc.

       For a connection to be established, both devices need to know about the other’s device ID.
       It’s not possible (in practice) to forge a device ID. (To forge a device ID  you  need  to
       create  a  TLS  certificate  with that specific SHA-256 hash.  If you can do that, you can
       spoof any TLS certificate. The world is your oyster!)

       SEE ALSO:
          device-ids

WHAT IF THERE IS A CONFLICT?

       Syncthing does recognize  conflicts.  When  a  file  has  been  modified  on  two  devices
       simultaneously  and  the  content  actually  differs,  one of the files will be renamed to
       <filename>.sync-conflict-<date>-<time>-<modifiedBy>.<ext>.  The  file   with   the   older
       modification  time  will  be  marked  as  the conflicting file and thus be renamed. If the
       modification times are equal, the file originating from the device which  has  the  larger
       value  of  the first 63 bits for his device ID will be marked as the conflicting file.  If
       the conflict is between a modification and a deletion  of  the  file,  the  modified  file
       always wins and is resurrected without renaming on the device where it was deleted.

       Beware   that   the  <filename>.sync-conflict-<date>-<time>-<modifiedBy>.<ext>  files  are
       treated as normal files after they are created, so they are propagated between devices. We
       do  this  because  the  conflict  is  detected  and  resolved  on one device, creating the
       sync-conflict file, but it’s just as much of a conflict everywhere else and we don’t  know
       which of the conflicting files is the “best” from the user point of view.

HOW DO I SERVE A FOLDER FROM A READ ONLY FILESYSTEM?

       Syncthing  requires  a “folder marker” to indicate that the folder is present and healthy.
       By default this is a directory called .stfolder that is  created  by  Syncthing  when  the
       folder  is  added.  If  this  folder  can’t be created (you are serving files from a CD or
       something) you can instead set the advanced config Marker Name to the name of some file or
       folder that you know will always exist in the folder.

I REALLY HATE THE .STFOLDER DIRECTORY, CAN I REMOVE IT?

       See the previous question.

AM I ABLE TO NEST SHARED FOLDERS IN SYNCTHING?

       Sharing  a  folder  that  is  within  an already shared folder is possible, but it has its
       caveats. What you must absolutely avoid are circular shares. This  is  just  one  example,
       there may be other undesired effects. Nesting shared folders is not supported, recommended
       or coded for, but it can be done successfully when you know what you’re doing -  you  have
       been warned.

HOW DO I RENAME/MOVE A SYNCED FOLDER?

       Syncthing  doesn’t have a direct way to do this, as it’s potentially dangerous to do so if
       you’re not careful - it may result in data loss if something goes wrong  during  the  move
       and is synchronized to your other devices.

       The easy way to rename or move a synced folder on the local system is to remove the folder
       in the Syncthing UI, move it on disk, then re-add it using the new path.

       It’s best to do this when the folder is already in sync between your  devices,  as  it  is
       otherwise  unpredictable  which  changes  will “win” after the move. Changes made on other
       devices may be overwritten, or changes made locally may be overwritten by those  on  other
       devices.

       An  alternative  way  is  to  shut  down Syncthing, move the folder on disk (including the
       .stfolder marker), edit the path directly in config.xml in the configuration  folder  (see
       config) and then start Syncthing again.

HOW DO I CONFIGURE MULTIPLE USERS ON A SINGLE MACHINE?

       Each  user  should  run  their  own  Syncthing  instance.  Be aware that you might need to
       configure listening ports such that they do not overlap (see config).

DOES SYNCTHING SUPPORT SYNCING BETWEEN FOLDERS ON THE SAME SYSTEM?

       No. Syncthing is not designed to sync locally and the overhead involved in doing so  using
       Syncthing’s  method  would  be wasteful. There are better programs to achieve this such as
       rsync or Unison.

WHEN I DO HAVE TWO DISTINCT SYNCTHING-MANAGED FOLDERS ON TWO HOSTS, HOW DOES SYNCTHING HANDLE

       MOVING FILES BETWEEN THEM?
       Syncthing   does  not  specially  handle  this  case,  and  most  files  most  likely  get
       re-downloaded.

       In detail, the behavior depends on the scan order. If you have folder A and  B,  and  move
       files  from  A  to  B,  if  A gets scanned first, it will announce removal of the files to
       others who will remove the files. As you rescan B, B will announce addition of new  files,
       and other peers will have nowhere to get them from apart from re-downloading them.

       If  B gets rescanned first, B will announce additions first, remote peers will reconstruct
       the files (not rename, more like copy block by block) from A, and then as A gets rescanned
       remove the files from A.

       A workaround would be to copy first from A to B, rescan B, wait for B to rebuild on remote
       ends, and then delete from A.

IS SYNCTHING MY IDEAL BACKUP APPLICATION?

       No. Syncthing is not a  great  backup  application  because  all  changes  to  your  files
       (modifications,  deletions,  etc.)  will be propagated to all your devices. You can enable
       versioning, but we encourage the use of other tools to keep your data safe from  your  (or
       our) mistakes.

WHY IS THERE NO IOS CLIENT?

       There  is  an  alternative  implementation  of Syncthing (using the same network protocol)
       called fsync(). There are no plans by the current Syncthing team to  support  iOS  in  the
       foreseeable  future,  as  the  code  required  to do so would be quite different from what
       Syncthing is today.

HOW CAN I EXCLUDE FILES WITH BRACKETS ([]) IN THE NAME?

       The patterns in .stignore are glob patterns, where brackets are used to  denote  character
       ranges. That is, the pattern q[abc]x will match the files qax, qbx and qcx.

       To  match  an  actual file called q[abc]x the pattern needs to “escape” the brackets, like
       so: q\[abc\]x.

       On Windows, escaping special characters is not supported as the \ character is used  as  a
       path  separator.  On the other hand, special characters such as [ and ? are not allowed in
       file names on Windows.

WHY IS THE SETUP MORE COMPLICATED THAN BITTORRENT/RESILIO SYNC?

       Security over convenience. In Syncthing you have  to  setup  both  sides  to  connect  two
       devices.  An  attacker  can’t do much with a stolen device ID, because you have to add the
       device on the other side too. You have better control where your files are transferred.

       This is an area that we are working to improve in the long term.

HOW DO I ACCESS THE WEB GUI FROM ANOTHER COMPUTER?

       The default listening address is 127.0.0.1:8384, so you can only access the GUI  from  the
       same  machine. This is for security reasons. Change the GUI listen address through the web
       UI from 127.0.0.1:8384 to 0.0.0.0:8384 or change the config.xml:

          <gui enabled="true" tls="false">
            <address>127.0.0.1:8384</address>

       to

          <gui enabled="true" tls="false">
            <address>0.0.0.0:8384</address>

       Then the GUI is accessible from everywhere. You should set a  password  and  enable  HTTPS
       with this configuration. You can do this from inside the GUI.

       If  both  your  computers  are  Unix-like  (Linux,  Mac,  etc.) you can also leave the GUI
       settings at default and use an ssh port forward to access it. For example,

          $ ssh -L 9090:127.0.0.1:8384 user@othercomputer.example.com

       will log you into othercomputer.example.com, and  present  the  remote  Syncthing  GUI  on
       http://localhost:9090 on your local computer.

       If  you  only  want to access the remote gui and don’t want the terminal session, use this
       example,

          $ ssh -N -L 9090:127.0.0.1:8384 user@othercomputer.example.com

       If only your remote computer is Unix-like, you can still access it with ssh from Windows.

       Under Windows 10 (64 bit) you can use the same ssh command  if  you  install  the  Windows
       Subsystem for Linux.  https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/commandline/wsl/install_guide

       Another   Windows   way   to   run   ssh   is   to   install   gow.    (Gnu   On  Windows)
       https://github.com/bmatzelle/gow

       The easiest way to install gow is with chocolatey.  https://chocolatey.org/

WHY DO I GET “HOST CHECK ERROR” IN THE GUI/API?

       Since version 0.14.6 Syncthing does an extra security check when the GUI/API is  bound  to
       localhost  -  namely that the browser is talking to localhost.  This protects against most
       forms of DNS rebinding attack  <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_rebinding>  against  the
       GUI.

       To  pass  this  test,  ensure that you are accessing the GUI using an URL that begins with
       http://localhost, http://127.0.0.1 or http://[::1]. HTTPS is fine too, of course.

       If you are using a proxy in front of Syncthing you may need to disable this  check,  after
       ensuring that the proxy provides sufficient authentication to protect against unauthorized
       access. Either:

       • Make sure the proxy sets a Host header containing localhost, or

       • Set insecureSkipHostcheck in the advanced settings, or

       • Bind the GUI/API to a non-localhost listen port.

       In all cases, username/password authentication and HTTPS should be used.

MY SYNCTHING DATABASE IS CORRUPT

       This is almost always a result of bad RAM, storage device  or  other  hardware.  When  the
       index  database  is found to be corrupt Syncthing cannot operate and will note this in the
       logs    and    exit.    To    overcome     this     delete     the     database     folder
       <https://docs.syncthing.net/users/config.html#description>    inside    Syncthing’s   home
       directory and re-start Syncthing. It will then need to perform a full  re-hashing  of  all
       shared folders. You should check your system in case the underlying cause is indeed faulty
       hardware which may put the system at risk of further data loss.

I DON’T LIKE THE GUI OR THE THEME. CAN IT BE CHANGED?

       You can change the theme in the settings. Syncthing  ships  with  other  themes  than  the
       default.

       If  you  want  a  custom  theme  or  a completely different GUI, you can add your own.  By
       default, Syncthing will look for a directory gui inside  the  Syncthing  home  folder.  To
       change  the  directory  to  look  for  themes, you need to set the STGUIASSETS environment
       variable. To get the concrete directory, run syncthing with the -paths parameter. It  will
       print all the relevant paths, including the “GUI override directory”.

       To  add  e.g. a red theme, you can create the file red/assets/css/theme.css inside the GUI
       override directory to override the default CSS styles.

       To   create   a    whole    new    GUI,    you    should    checkout    the    files    at
       https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/tree/master/gui/default  to  get  an idea how to do
       that.

WHY DO I SEE SYNCTHING TWICE IN TASK MANAGER?

       One process manages the other, to capture logs and manage restarts. This makes  it  easier
       to  handle  upgrades from within Syncthing itself, and also ensures that we get a nice log
       file to help us narrow down the cause for crashes and other bugs.

WHERE DO SYNCTHING LOGS GO TO?

       Syncthing logs to stdout  by  default.  On  Windows  Syncthing  by  default  also  creates
       syncthing.log  in  Syncthing’s home directory (run syncthing -paths to see where that is).
       Command line option -logfile can be used to specify a user-defined logfile.

HOW CAN I VIEW THE HISTORY OF CHANGES?

       The web GUI contains a Global Changes button under the device list which displays  changes
       since the last (re)start of Syncthing. With the -audit option you can enable a persistent,
       detailed log of changes and most activities, which contains a JSON formatted  sequence  of
       events in the ~/.config/syncthing/audit-_date_-_time_.log file.

DOES THE AUDIT LOG CONTAIN EVERY CHANGE?

       The  audit  log (and the Global Changes window) sees the changes that your Syncthing sees.
       When  Syncthing  is  continuously  connected  it  usually  sees  every  change   happening
       immediately and thus knows which node initiated the change.  When topology gets complex or
       when your node reconnects  after  some  time  offline,  Syncthing  synchronises  with  its
       neighbours:  It gets the latest synchronised state from the neighbour, which is the result
       of all the changes between the last known state (before disconnect or network  delay)  and
       the  current  state  at  the  neighbour,  and  if  there  were  updates, deletes, creates,
       conflicts, which were overlapping we only see the  latest  change  for  a  given  file  or
       directory  (and  the  node where that latest change occurred). When we connect to multiple
       neighbours Syncthing decides which neighbor  has  the  latest  state,  or  if  the  states
       conflict  it  initiates  the  conflict resolution procedure, which in the end results in a
       consistent up-to-date state with all the neighbours.

HOW DO I UPGRADE SYNCTHING?

       If you use a package manager such as  Debian’s  apt-get,  you  should  upgrade  using  the
       package  manager.  If  you  use the binary packages linked from Syncthing.net, you can use
       Syncthing built in automatic upgrades.

       • If automatic upgrades is enabled (which is the default), Syncthing will  upgrade  itself
         automatically within 24 hours of a new release.

       • The upgrade button appears in the web GUI when a new version has been released. Pressing
         it will perform an upgrade.

       • To force an upgrade from the command line, run syncthing -upgrade.

       Note that your  system  should  have  CA  certificates  installed  which  allow  a  secure
       connection to GitHub (e.g. FreeBSD requires sudo pkg install ca_root_nss). If curl or wget
       works with normal HTTPS sites, then so should Syncthing.

WHERE DO I FIND THE LATEST RELEASE?

       We release new versions through GitHub. The latest release is always found on the  release
       page  <https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/releases/latest>.  Unfortunately GitHub does
       not provide a single URL to automatically download the latest version. We suggest  to  use
       the  GitHub  API  at  https://api.github.com/repos/syncthing/syncthing/releases/latest and
       parsing the JSON response.

HOW DO I RUN SYNCTHING AS A DAEMON PROCESS ON LINUX?

       If  you’re  using  systemd,  runit,  or  upstart,  we   already   ship   examples,   check
       https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/tree/master/etc for example configurations.

       If  however  you’re  not  using one of these tools, you have a couple of options.  If your
       system has a tool called start-stop-daemon installed (that’s the name of the command,  not
       the  package),  look into the local documentation for that, it will almost certainly cover
       100% of what you want to do.  If you don’t have start-stop-daemon, there are  a  bunch  of
       other  software  packages  you  could  use  to  do  this.   The  most well known is called
       daemontools, and can be found in the  standard  package  repositories  for   almost  every
       modern  Linux distribution.  Other popular tools with similar functionality include S6 and
       the aforementioned runit.

HOW DO I INCREASE THE INOTIFY LIMIT TO GET MY FILESYSTEM WATCHER TO WORK?

       You are probably reading this  because  you  encountered  the  following  error  with  the
       filesystem watcher on linux:
          Failed  to  start  filesystem  watcher  for  folder yourLabel (yourID): failed to setup
          inotify      handler.       Please       increase       inotify       limits,       see
          https://docs.syncthing.net/users/faq.html#inotify-limits

       Linux  typically  restricts  the  amount of watches per user (usually 8192). When you have
       more directories you need to adjust that number.

       On many Linux distributions you can run the following to fix it:

          echo "fs.inotify.max_user_watches=204800" | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf

       On Arch Linux and potentially others it is preferred to write this line  into  a  separate
       file, i.e. you should run:

          echo "fs.inotify.max_user_watches=204800" | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.d/90-override.conf

       This only takes effect after a reboot. To adjust the limit immediately, run:

          sudo sh -c 'echo 204800 > /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_watches'

AUTHOR

       The Syncthing Authors

COPYRIGHT

       2014-2019, The Syncthing Authors