Is there something special with sharing /etc?

[Wpq]

I would like to share /etc as a send-only share. Syncthing is running as root.

I get the message

2022-11-27 15:41:21: Failed to create folder marker: mkdir /etc/.stfolder: read-only file system

2022-11-27 15:41:21: Error on folder "/etc" (33xty-7zqtz): folder marker missing (this indicates potential data loss, search docs/forum to get information about how to proceed)

Is there something specific that prevents /etc to be shared (built-in to Syncthing)?

This is a standard Debian machine, with other successful shares and I do not see a reason why Syncthing running as root could not create the expected directory:

root@router ~# file /etc/.stfolder
/etc/.stfolder: cannot open `/etc/.stfolder' (No such file or directory)
root@router ~# mkdir /etc/.testfile
root@router ~# file /etc/.testfile
/etc/.testfile: directory

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Interestingly enough, I see on the machine I want to share /etc to the message

router wants to share folder "/etc" (33xty-7zqtz). Add new folder?

which means that somehow router sent a share advertisement (but sending the advertisement and actually sharing may be independent (though I think they should not be))

[calmh (Jakob Borg)]

/etc is protected by the hardening options in the systemd unit file, you’ll have to loosen those up a bit.

[Wpq]

Thank you. I will investigate this (there are several settings in systemd that are relevant), in the meantime I manually created /etc/.stfolder and the synchronization started.

[bt90]

PSA: don’t edit the unit file manually.

systemctl edit --full is your friend and won’t go up in smoke on the next update.