Syncing multiple users on multiple machines

General
1

Hi,

I’m looking for advise on how to sync several computers, each with a number of users.

I have several computers and several users. I’d like to have a situation where any user could log into any computer and have their synchronized directories available to them. I’m hoping that I don’t have to run a separate instance of syncthing on each computer for each user.

Is there an alternative?

TIA,

Mike.

2

Its called shared home drives, its been out there since the 70’s.

3

Well, we think Syncthing has a purpose even if shared filesystems were invented in the 70s. In this case, you could set up one Syncthing instance to sync all the home directories, enabling the sync-ownership option. Probably your users should understand that this is going on, as they may see sync conflicts and whatnot from time to time.

4
  1. Shared home directories introduce a single point of failure and I don’t have the resources to build in redundancy.
  2. Some of these computers are laptops and get used from remote locations.

So, Syncthing is the PERFECT solution to my problem.

I’m assuming that syncthing would have to run as root. Are there syncthing-specific precautions I can take in this case?

Also, how do I enable the sync-ownership option?

Thanks, again.

Mike.

5

There are some details in the docs about it, search for “sync ownership”. Root is not specifically required, but at least some rootish capabilities are required (arbitrary chown and that kind of thing).

1 Like
6

Well, the right answer seems to come from:

https://docs.syncthing.net/advanced/folder-sync-ownership.html

Looks like this is going to do exactly what I want.

Thank you.

1 Like