Setting up BitSync on Debian
I’ve replaced Dropbox with BitTorrent Sync.
In order to do this I’ve have btsync
running on a VPS (2CPU, 2GB, 400GB), my
home server and assorted Arch Linux workstations.
I had a couple of reasons for migrating away from Dropbox.
- Dropbox was costing $100 per year.
- Dropbox encryption model is weak and I have data security/privacy.
The VPS I am running BitTorrent Sync on costs $50 per year and provides
four times the storage. I run btsync
on a VPS so that there is always
a server “in the cloud” that is available to sync with so that my
setup emulates what Dropbox used to do.
All my servers are running Debian and this is how I install btsync
on Debian.
sh -c "$(curl -fsSL http://debian.yeasoft.net/add-btsync-repository.sh)" sudo apt-get install btsync
This is how I respond to the prompts:
- Do you want to define a default BitTorrent Sync instance? : YES
- BitTorrent Sync Daemon Credentials: yourusername
- BitTorrent Sync Daemon Group: yourusername
- Niceness of the BitTorrent Sync Daemon: 0
- On which portnumber should BitTorrent Sync listen? 0
- BitTorrent Sync Listen Port: 12345
- Do you want BitTorrent Sync to request port mapping via UPNP? NO
- Download Bandwith Limit: 0
- Upload Bandwith Limit: 0
- Web Interface Bind IP Address: 0.0.0.0
- Web Interface Listen Port: 8888
- The username for accessing the web interface: yourusername
- The password for accessing the web interface: yourpassword
As you’ll see, I don’t use UPNP on my VPS. I elect a specific port (not
actually 12345 by the way) and open that port up with ufw
. I also only
allow access to the WebUI port from another server I own which reverse
proxies via nginx
.
btsync
works really well, I have it syncing hundreds of thousands of
files that amount to several hundred gigabytes of data. On my Arch Linux
workstations I use the brilliant btsync-gui
and BitTorrent Sync is also available for Android.
That said, I still use a free Dropbox account to sync photos from mine and my wife’s Android phones. I have a Dropbox instance running on my home file server and everyday it runs a script to automatically import these photos into Plex.
Such a shame, that at the time of writing, btsync
is closed source :-(
Maybe that will change but if it doesn’t SyncThing
may well be the answer when it has matured a little.
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