Ubuntu - folder permissions (can't create .stfolder)?

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Hello, I found this other topic here ( Need help please - setup issue - .stfolder: permission denied - #4 by chaos ) but it doesn’t really answer the question I have and their setup is a bit different.

I just installed Syncthing on Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS using the documentation on how to add to Debian systems, and installed the repository and program from terminal. I then opened Syncthing from the gui and tried to add my first folder. That’s when I got the .stfolder creation permission denied error.

First, I’m not sure how to tell what user is running syncthing. I assume it’s just my own account since I opened it from the gui using ‘Start Syncthing’ and then the web gui option. If I check the folder that I’m trying to add to start syncing, I see the permissions are set like this:

drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Oct 9 04:49 30ed69d0-69ed-4f3c-a0c7-2595ca545467

So, do I just need to make the owner of that folder be my own user account instead of root?

Also, do I need to do anything to make Syncthing start with my computer now? I wasn’t sure with the Debian repository install if I just needed to use ‘Start Syncthing’ the once and that’s it, or if I should follow the instructions to get it to run on startup with systemd or something else like that?

Thanks so much!

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chaos@REDACTED:~$ ps -ef | grep syncthing
chaos       1181     930  0 Sep12 ?        00:00:06 /usr/bin/syncthing serve --no-browser --no-restart
chaos       1189    1181  0 Sep12 ?        00:29:11 /usr/bin/syncthing serve --no-browser --no-restart
chaos     136257  136216  0 11:47 pts/0    00:00:00 grep --color=auto syncthing

My username is chaos, ps -ef | grep syncthing will show the username that owns the Syncthing processes.

Your next move is to give the user that owns the two Syncthing processes access to the directory in question.

sudo setfacl -R -m u:alice:rwx /path/to/directory

Replace “alice” with the owner of the process for Syncthing. This command will give read, write and execute permissions to “alice” recursively (including subdirectories).

If you want Syncthing to start on boot, use:

sudo systemctl enable --now syncthing@alice.service

sudo systemctl status syncthing@alice.service

Again, replace “alice” with your actual username.

3

Perfect! Thank you so much.