Permissions Per System

General
1

Hey Syncthing users… I’m looking for a syncing solution and hope this might be it!

I am trying to find a continuous file synchronization service that can be used to sync linux system configurations. For the most part, any service works for this (dropbox, google drive, box, etc etc). However, I have an issue so far for all the services I have tried. It occurs in the situation where I update file MYFILE.TXT on SYSTEM-A and MYFILE.TXT gets synced over to SYSTEM-B. The issue arrises on SYSTEM-B. All services I have looked at REPLACE MYFILE.TXT on SYSTEM-B instead of UPDATING MYFILE.TXT on SYSTEM-B. This has two consequences for my situation:

  1. File ownership and permissions get reset back to the default as if the file were created new. While I don’t expect a continuous syncing solution to preserve ownership/permissions across systems, I do need ownership/permissions to be preserved per system.

  2. Replacing a file breaks hard links (new inode is created with the new file).

    2.1 Yes, I know this can be solved by using a soft link/symlink. I personally use symlinks, but when a file is simply updated, a hard link should not be broken.

So, can anyone tell me if Syncthing REPLACES updated files or UPDATES updated files?

If Syncthing REPLACES updated files, is there any chance that UPDATING files could be implemented as a future feature? Furthermore, does anyone know of any services that UPDATE instead of REPLACE?

Thanks!

2

Syncthing does not do in place edits either, and there are not plans to do so.

3

I would look into using etckeeper for that. It isn’t a continuous synchronization solution by itself, but can certainly be automated depending on your requirements/environments.