Recently, I've started to look at the services I'm using and I'm trying
to find alternatives for some of them. One of them was
[[https://www.dropbox.com/][Dropbox]]. I've been using this service for
4 or 5 years at this point, and I was a paid customer for at least 3
years. My plan was about to renew in a few days, and I decided to look
for a free (either as "doesn't cost a buck" or OSS) alternative. To make
it quick, since it's not the purpose of this post, I've decided to go
with Bittorrent Sync. Still, this solution is not perfect, so here's a
short list of pros and cons:
- Pros:
- Free
- The only limit on storage is based on the free space you have
- Decentralized
- Cons
- Harder to set up
- Slower than Dropbox for syncing files
- Decentralized (yes I know): you need to always have at least one
node up if you want to get a copy of a file
I decided to set btsync on one of my server that is always up, that I
way I can access my copies whenever I want from any devices (this is
similar to Dropbox). To do that I've create a set of tasks for Ansible,
following the instructions provided by
[[https://github.com/tuxpoldo][Leo Moll]] (who created the package for
Debian) on
[[http://forum.bittorrent.com/topic/18974-debian-and-ubuntu-server-packages-for-bittorrent-sync-121-1/][this
forum]].
I've created a role named 'btsync' that contains a handler, some
templates and a bunch of tasks. Let's start with the handler, since this
one is really simple. For this role, the only y service we care about is
the bittorrent sync daemon:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
- name: restart btsync
service: name=btsync state=restarted
#+END_EXAMPLE
The tasks are pretty straightforward. First we need to fetch Leo's PGP
key so we can install the package using =apt=.
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
- name: Install GPG key for btsync
apt_key:
id=6BF18B15
state=present
url=http://stinkfoot.org:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x40FC0CD26BF18B15
#+END_EXAMPLE
Now that we have the PGP key, we can add the repository to our sources
and install the package:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
- name: Add the deb repo for btsync
apt_repository:
repo='deb http://debian.yeasoft.net/btsync wheezy main'
state=present
- name: Install btsync
apt: pkg=btsync state=installed
#+END_EXAMPLE
For the remaining tasks, we need some configuration.
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
btsync_shared:
- dir: /path/to/shared/photos
secret: a-secret
use_relay_server: true
use_dht: false
search_lan: false
use_sync_trash: true
- dir: /path/to/shared/documents
secret: another-secret
use_relay_server: true
search_lan: false
use_sync_trash: true
#+END_EXAMPLE
The daemon expect all the directories that it will write to, to exist.
So let's create them for him, and also set the right permissions on
them:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
- name: Create the directories where we need to sync
file: path={{ item.dir }} state=directory owner={{ main_user_name }} group={{ main_user_name }} mode=0700
with_items: btsync_shared
#+END_EXAMPLE
We need a specific configuration file for our user:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
- name: Configure btsync
template:
src=etc_btsync_user.conf.j2
dest=/etc/btsync/{{ main_user_name }}.conf
group={{ main_user_name }}
owner={{ main_user_name }}
mode=0600
notify: restart btsync
#+END_EXAMPLE
and the template that goes with it:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
{
"device_name": "{{ domain }}",
"storage_path" : "/home/{{ main_user_name }}/.btsync",
"listening_port" : 12589,
"check_for_updates" : false,
"use_upnp" : false,
"download_limit" : 0,
"upload_limit" : 0,
"disk_low_priority" : true,
"lan_encrypt_data" : true,
"lan_use_tcp" : false,
"rate_limit_local_peers" : false,
"folder_rescan_interval" : 600,
"shared_folders" : {{ btsync_shared | to_json }}
}
#+END_EXAMPLE
To complete the setup, we need to tell the daemon to start with our
newly created configuration:
#+BEGIN_SRC sh
# This is the configuration file for /etc/init.d/btsync
#
# Start only these btsync instances automatically via
# init script.
AUTOSTART="{{ main_user_name }}"
# Optional arguments to btsync's command line. Be careful!
# You should only add thngs here if you know EXACTLY what
# you are doing!
DAEMON_ARGS=""
#+END_SRC
Finally, the task to setup the default configuration for the daemon:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
- name: Configure btsync server
template:
src=etc_default_btsync.j2
dest=/etc/default/btsync
group=root
owner=root
notify: restart btsync
#+END_EXAMPLE
That's it!
I'll try to find some time this weekend to upload this to
[[https://galaxy.ansibleworks.com/][Galaxy]].
