friction-free config?

Support
#1

Hello all. I’m looking for a way to have a “not at all computer minded”-person join a syncthing setup.

Ideally the remote devices/introducers and folders should already be loaded in the setup process, offering the least opportunities for wrong input or user confusion.

For example, teamviewer has a “single click” system where the config is bundled and the whole thing starts simply by doubleclicking the resulting exe.

Is this a solved problem? Are there any pointers for me to try to build such a thing? Am I a fool?

Thanks in advance!

#2

Aren’t we all? :smiley:

This has come up before, so you should be able to find more info here on the forum. Off the top of my head:

Config managers may be of use (though maybe overkill): Community Contributions — Syncthing v1 documentation

Also Arigi (https://www.kastelo.net/arigi/), which is geared towards large setups but might work for you (and is free to use for up to 5 devices).

And in the end the config is just a simple xml file: If adding a peer only occurs infrequently you can just prepare that file by hand and tell the user to copy it to the right place and you are done.

1 Like
#3

You can probably ship a zip file with the executable, a config skeleton that sets your mothership device as introducer+auto accept folders, and a powershell or bat file to start/install. Might require some engineering though, so not a solved problem per se… (Might be a nice open source project to create a “builder” for such bundles though.)

1 Like
#4

The config xml does have to be unique on every instance, so I imagine a utility that edits and injects in file is needed. I’m more of a unix guy, and the people I want to “target” are mainly windows users (photography enthousiasts) so there’s that bridge to cross.

#5

It does not need to be unique.

#6

Forgive me, I may have spent less time on this than I should have before replying.

What I meant is there is a default folder which points to the users’ c:\users\nameofuser\Sync, and there is the own device in the config. Sadly I don’t know enough go to create a supporting config utility, I will do an attempt in python instead.

#7

You can ship the XML without the default folder. If you don’t ship the key and cert they are created on first start. If the XML doesn’t have a device entry matching the key/cert, it will be created too (IIRC).

1 Like
#8

Exactly

#9

Also, you can use ~ to refer to the user home directory, even on Windows.

#10

Well I’m using a MSI that bundles syncthing stock files and a batch file to create a fresh default config with relay disabled. If I need our corporate server “auto configured” I can change the MSI filename and batch file will pick up the device ID, ip address and port from there to auto-add and trust the company server on first installation or upgrade. I’m building the MSI with wix toolset and a batch script, so its reproducible. Only problem for some people might be: the web ui password. I’ve defaulted the web ui to listen locally with no password and the MSI creating a disabled windows service. That way I ensure, an admin needs to set 0.0.0.0 listen address and ui password first before turning the service to autostart with the system. Btw it’s a system service. I would be fine to contribute if anyone has interest. Just didn’t make it to that point before because I thought some might counter the MSI packaging with the two arguments: uhhh, a system service or ahhh, what if some one enables this via group policy accidentally and corporate data gets exposed because he forgot to set a ui password. Ideas welcome :wink:

1 Like
#11

Catfriend1: that would certainly be interesting, at the very least it’s something to build on top off.

Regarding the password situation, I don’t think there is an easy answer, but the situation wouldn’t be unique to syncthing.

1 Like
#12

@MMM Please see my “share existing work” post.

Forum: [DRAFT] How to build a Syncthing MSI package for distribution

GitHub: https://github.com/Catfriend1/syncthing-msi/releases/tag/v1.4.0

#13

This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.