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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
+[[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]].