Dual boot and sync same files

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I have a laptop which can boot Windows 10 or Ubuntu 15.04.

I have syncthing installed under Windows but not under Ubuntu.

I also have a Raspberry Pi running syncthing using the debian package, so I shouldn’t find it too hard to install syncthing under Ubuntu.

The folders I am syncing under Windows are on a separate data partition (NTFS).

I’m thinking of installing syncthing under Ubuntu to sync the same folders on the data partition.

I’m not planning sharing any of the configuration or any syncthing stuff except, of course, the dync folders. Even if I could get this to work, it seems likely to be a problem when versions get out of step.

I’m aware that I’ll have to shut down Windows fully, not hibernating, before booting Ubuntu. Also to ignore permissions on NTFS folders.

I would expect other nodes to see each of the OSs as a separate node - it just so happens that they are never available at the same time.

I would like to know if there is any reason I shouldn’t run like this.

I have thought of one which may or may not be a problem - master folders. Is it possible to have both Ubuntu and Windows configuring the same folder as master? (They shouldn’t come into conflict as they can’t talk to one another).

Can anyone see any gotchas?

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Search the forums, this has been answered before.

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I am doing almost exactly what you have described here.

  • dual boot W10 and Mint
  • NTFS data partition, 250 GB of files, accessible from W10 and Mint
  • Mint running syncthing installed via apt
  • W10 running auto-update syncthing
  • at least one more Linux system that syncs with each of the dual boot systems

As long as you ignore permissions all should be ok.

What I do in addition to make sure all sync the same files is using #include in the ignore settings.

So in all my folders .stignore is set to #include .stignore.inc And the file .stignore.inc is copied to all sync folders and gets synced.

So this works without any problems. Maybe except one, but might already be fixed in the current version.

  • renaming folders on NTFS from upper to lower case but same name. e.g. C:\syncfolder\whatever renamed to c:\syncfolder\Whatever or /media/sync/whatever/ renamed to /media/sync/Whatever Could cause errors or duplicates.
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Same here on multiple machines. I think you might run into problems though, when the following happens:

You save a file while running your favorite OS, OSa, then let the change propagate across your cluster. Then you change (say “save”) that file again while still on OSa, immediately shutdown that OS before syncthingA got a chance to notice or even propagate the change. Now you start OSb, syncthingB here sees a change on the cluster, but also a change to the local file, so you will get a conflict on that file.

I had that happening a couple of times, until I couldn’t bear it anymore and now I also share my database across operating systems thanks to a tip by @AudriusButkevicius: You can open an index.db folder on the shared partition and then symlink both ~/.config/syncthing/index-v0.11.0.db and the corresponding windows folder to that folder. If you’re sharing a fw hundred Gigs of Data that also saves space on your OS-partitions

I also share the certificates, so that I can “reduce” the number of devices in my cluster. Note, however, that I don’t share the config, since they use different paths.

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Thanks @oppiman @Arneko. Just the sort of replies I was hoping for - from people with similar configurations.

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