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+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 [Dropbox](https://www.dropbox.com/). 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 [Leo Moll](https://github.com/tuxpoldo) (who created the package for Debian) on [this forum](http://forum.bittorrent.com/topic/18974-debian-and-ubuntu-server-packages-for-bittorrent-sync-121-1/).
+
+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:
+
+```yaml
+- name: restart btsync
+  service: name=btsync state=restarted
+```
+
+The tasks are pretty straightforward. First we need to fetch Leo's PGP key so we can install the package using `apt`.
+
+```yaml
+- name: Install GPG key for btsync
+  apt_key:
+    id=6BF18B15
+    state=present
+    url=http://stinkfoot.org:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x40FC0CD26BF18B15
+```
+
+Now that we have the PGP key, we can add the repository to our sources and install the package:
+
+```yaml
+- 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
+```
+
+For the remaining tasks, we need some configuration.
+
+```yaml
+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
+```
+
+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:
+
+```yaml
+- 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
+```
+
+We need a specific configuration file for our user:
+
+```yaml
+- 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
+```
+
+and the template that goes with it:
+
+```json
+{
+        "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 }}
+}
+```
+
+To complete the setup, we need to tell the daemon to start with our newly created configuration:
+
+```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=""
+```
+
+Finally, the task to setup the default configuration for the daemon:
+
+```yaml
+- name: Configure btsync server
+  template:
+    src=etc_default_btsync.j2
+    dest=/etc/default/btsync
+    group=root
+    owner=root
+  notify: restart btsync
+```
+
+That's it!
+
+I'll try to find some time this weekend to upload this to [Galaxy](https://galaxy.ansibleworks.com/).