Sync Things with Syncthing

I use Syncthing to sync my notes from work desktop compute to vps server, so I can continue my work at home, syncthing is pretty easy to setup and use.

In this post I will use docker-compose to setup syncthing server and client.

Running syncthing in docker

The docker-compose file are as follows: Server side:

version: "3"
services:
  syncthing:
    image: syncthing/syncthing
    container_name: syncthing
    hostname: syncthing-server
    environment:
      - PUID=1000
      - PGID=1000
    volumes:
      - .:/var/syncthing
    ports:
      - 8384:8384
      - 22000:22000/tcp
      - 22000:22000/udp
    restart: unless-stopped

Client side:

version: "3"
services:
  syncthing:
    image: syncthing/syncthing
    container_name: syncthing
    hostname: syncthing-macOS
    environment:
      - PUID=1000
      - PGID=1000
    volumes:
      - ~/syncthing/dir_a/:/var/syncthing/dir_a
      - ~/syncthing/dir_b/:/var/syncthing/dir_b
    ports:
      - 8384:8384
      - 22000:22000/tcp
      - 22000:22000/udp
    restart: unless-stopped

Start syncthing by running docker-compose up, when the following messages shows up, your syncthing is ready to use:

syncthing    | [Z35SY] 00:01:12 INFO: Access the GUI via the following URL: http://127.0.0.1:8384/

There will be a warning in the web interface on startup:

Click Settings to setup GUI Authentication User and GUI Authentication Password then save, and do the same thing in server side.

Add share folders

Click Add Folder in the left side under Folders and add folder want to share with server:

Add Remote Device

Click Add Remote Device in the right side under Remote Devices and add syncthing server’s ID, the ID can be found in logs:

docker-compose logs|grep 'My ID'
yncthing    | [E4RT4] 23:57:10 INFO: My ID: E4RT4VV-XCALXQU-4KH3PBG-TWZC4LF-MUXOXZY-DUXJGPJ-J3BACR2-X2MWSQU

Swich to Share tab, and enable folders want to share with server:

Another way to get server device ID is via web UI, Click Actions » Click Show ID:

Allow Device Connection

The final step is to go to server side and confirm the New Device: Wait for a little while, the new folder messages will show up, confirm those two folders we just shared in client side and we are done:

Ignore folders

If you want some of the folders not synced to server, create a file .stignore and put the folder name in it, this folder will be excluded from sync.