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BitTorrent Sync out of private beta!
New self-hosted "Dropbox clone" (think AeroFS) BitTorrent Sync is out of private beta: http://labs.bittorrent.com/experiments/sync.html
It allows you to sync arbitrary folders, which is awesome, as well as time-limited and read-only sharing through a "secret code," which makes it REALLY nice for sharing things quickly or collaborating. I have to say, I'm digging it.
I have it set up on some of my servers and I have to say it looks awesome - It uses MUCH less memory then AeroFS (which was pig) or the DropBox client:
$ sudo python ps_mem.py | grep btsync 2.1 MiB + 169.5 KiB = 2.3 MiB btsync
And thanks to bittorrent, when you have tons of nodes up it transfers super quick.
I'd recommend trying it out!
Comments
Cool
Does it sync in "real time" or in like 5 minute intervals or?
Interesting, thanks for pointing this out :-)
Found on their FAQ:
Nice.
I've been using this for a few days now
I can't keep saying how completely awesome it is
I've been using it for about a week now, and while it's still not release quality (there are some issues around config, for example) it's already better than SkyDrive, and getting close to Dropbox. If you know enough to run a VPS or two I'd say it's the perfect compliment to a free Dropbox account - use Dropbox for smaller, commonly used files (because it's faster to spot changes, gives more feedback on progress, and integrates more widely), and BTSync for larger, less intensively used files (in my case my Aperture library and home movies so far).
Trying it now, but since you just have to enter the key generated by the other device that share the folder and keys don't expire, someone can just try keys all the time and get access to your files and folders. It doesn't seem very safe to me.
@MuZo it would take someone longer then the earth will be around to generate a key that's good for your files.
@MuZo Math is a scary thing. Pretend that every human that has ever lived (about 50 billion) each had 7 billion computers, and each computer had tried a billion keys per second since the start of the universe. Right about now they would have tried every possible key, and hence would have been certain of getting to your data.
Not only that, but as per their website:
http://labs.bittorrent.com/experiments/sync/technology.html#secret
This sounds convincing but I couldn't really live without versioning which I'm used to with Dropbox
Finally! I liked the sounds of AeroFS but didn't like the idea of being forced to put everything where IT wanted instead of where I wanted, so I've been waiting to try this out instead. I wish it had versioning too, but can live without it for some of my more static data (like the CD/DVD collection) for now.
To those concerned about the secret...I haven't looked to see what characters are used in their random secrets, but even if it's only just single case alphanumeric, that means a 32 character secret has 26^32 possibilities, which is:
1,901,722,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
That's 1.9 Quattuordecillion. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septillion#Standard_dictionary_numbers to look at how much further down than "billion" or "trillion" that is
Ree - I believe it's A-Z and 2-7 (don't know why), so 32^32. Wolfram Alpha tells me that's "1 quindecillion, 461 quattuordecillion, 501 tredecillion, 637 duodecillion, 330 undecillion, 902 decillion, 918 nonillion, 203 octillion, 684 septillion, 832 sextillion, 716 quintillion, 283 quadrillion, 19 trillion, 655 billion, 932 million, 542 thousand and 976" - I love how many words you go past to get to trillion!
I wonder if the providers that don't like p2p protocols will allow this
Awesome! Was super-easy to set up, just made a configuration file and copied it across servers. Semi-disappointed that it's closed source unlike dvcs-autosync/unison/SparkleShare, was hoping to add some features to make setting up/configuring easier; oh well.
For me it's really nice because I actually don't want version control, most of the files I sync are binary and just take up space in dvcs-autosync (which uses git). And if something bad happens there's a trash.
I recommend it for personal use, I don't think it's quite ready to deploy as a sync option for backing up your production website or whatever but it's a really promising app from what I was able to test in the private alpha!
For backing up a server one-way I'd say rsync is and will always be the best solution.
I just found that btsync communicates with servers like 54.225.92.50:3000(UDP) even though I've disabled disable tracker, DHT, relay server, and even LAN search (oh, and check for updates is disabled too). I even checked the packets and it shows that the server knows all of the peers. So it seems like this is a tracker server, but tracker is disabled on all of my servers. I hope it's just that I made mistake or they have not double checked their configuration options... otherwise I'll have to switch back to dvcs-autosync.
(data isn't sensitive or critical or anything, but it's not cool to have the software ignore my settings; also to be clear this is just the tracker server with peer information, not data or anything)
That would be Base32 -- and the reason Base32 picked 2-7 is because 0 and 1 look like O and I.
I'm curious what makes you say that.
There is no way to inspect the source code.
Relying on this to keep your files secure, would be madness.
Kind of strange I'm doing a sync between two servers and netstat -antup output on both servers does not show the btsync connection to the other server... the outbound btsync connection on each server shows from local random port to 0.0.0.0, not to the IP of the other server. Is this just how upnp/btsync works I guess?
This popped up a couple weeks ago: http://12char.com/ - pretty cool idea!
I miss a web UI for file access and while I can easily install something such as AjaXplorer, I'd still prefer something Sync specific.