Multiple users : some kind of mismatch

[CoeurNoir (GM)]

Hi,

Using Syncthing for years now and well I don’t ask often things here because it just works.

So I am almost glad to ask for some help today

Here is a « new » situation for me.

One computer ( running Ubuntu Budgie 20.04 ) and 3 users, A, B, C Those users don’t share folders through SyncThing with each others. But each one of this user share folders with other computers - so they all have their own ~/.config/syncthing.

My problem.

For user C, no problem : each time he launches web UI, it leads to 127.0.0.1:37243 For user A and B, problem : for both users, web UI leads to 127.0.0.1:8384 therefore if session for A is already open with active Syncthing, B will see A’s Syncthing shares and not his owns ( and vice-versa, depending of who first opened a session ).

This also means it’s ok as long as only one user out of A and B is logged in to his session.

But as you guess, we need to be able to switch from A, B or C seamlessly.

I’ve checked this

Syncthing starts with different device IDs

I just upgraded from Debian wheezy to jessie. Had a backup of my .config/syncthing directory, but the upgrade process didn’t modify anything in it (.pem keys and config.xml are binary identical). Syncthing is run from the user’s LXDE autostart: john@pc:~/.config/lxsession/LXDE$ cat autostart | grep syncthing @/usr/bin/syncthing -no-browser -home="/home/john/.config/syncthing" When I looked at the Syncthing GUI at https://127.0.0.1:8384/, the device ID has changed from LNTX to ZEH5 (IDs truncat…

but it works exactly the same, with or without -home=/path_to/each_user/.config/syncthing

So I wonder how / where I may assign a different address for each user, as mentioned in help . Do I only need to change that port « manually » for each user ? And only once ? Any downsides ? How do I check « availability » of ports ?

The strange thing here is I have other computers with « multi-users » ( *buntu and windows ) but on these, webUI may lead for one user to …:8384 but all other users are led to something else like …:37XXY

So I guess I forget something during first configuration of Syncthing… Or maybe it’s related to some of these shares being many years old and some other recent, later added ?

I also read some lines about SyncThing as a service in systemd but am not at all « educated » about those…

So, any suggestions and highlights very welcome. I have permanent physical access to that machine so if you need some logs or commands outputs, let me know.

[calmh (Jakob Borg)]

You can change the web UI to listen on which port you like, in the config.xml for a given user.

Syncthing will use :8384 (and write that to the config) if it’s free when it starts up the first time (when it creates the config). If :8384 is taken when it starts up the first time it will use another random port and write that to the config.

[CoeurNoir (GM)]

Ok, thanks, sounds easy, there ↓

    <gui enabled="true" tls="false" debugging="false">
        <address>127.0.0.1:37243</address>

Now sorry for my ignorance but how may I know which ports are available ( or busy ) between 1024 and 65535 ? netstat ?

Ok statistically speaking I have a good opportunity to pick up an available one, but one should not rely on luck.

@calmh

If :8384 is taken when it starts up the first time it will use another random port and write that to the config.

This also explains what happened : first created user was probably A. Second one was C. So C get 127.0.0.1:37243. When I created the third one B, none of the other users was logged in so …:8384 « looked » free for SyncThing at that moment. Isn’t it a bit fragile ?

---

ok, ok, thanks again @calmh all fixed by assigning a port per user in each config.xml