> Secondly, if you don’t know what you are doing, may be don’t create random config files and hope the software deals with it.
This sounds like a variant of the old "you're holding it wrong" blurb.
The problem you're commenting on actually describe a multitude of problems with the application, specially how it causes data loss if it's config happens to get corrupted.
The comment about the need to back up data also seems to not take into account that the service is already used to back up data across multiple devices.
It may have already been used as a backup system, but it was not made for that, and they even answered that in their FAQ. It was this question that stopped me setting it up, because it made me realise I was after a backup solution, not just a synchronisation tool
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Is Syncthing my ideal backup application?
No. Syncthing is not a great backup application because all changes to your files (modifications, deletions, etc.) will be propagated to all your devices. You can enable versioning, but we encourage you to use other tools to keep your data safe from your (or our) mistakes.
"
this is why I prefer the 'conservational' sync option from Google. If you delete a file it prompts you if you also want to delete remotely. Sure, it doesn't prevent bad overwrites but that's what git is for.
No, I wasn’t saying the thing about creating config files in the same vein as “you are holding it wrong^tm”. Any software would crap out if you manually give it wrong/empty config files - that is only reasonable. Sure, if you’re worried about the config file getting corrupted without user interference, that’s a bug. I’d also be pissed if I were the author of the project and someone complained by saying - “I deleted the config file your software uses, and I am not a fan of your software because it doesn’t magically heal itself and protect against users such as myself”.
No! Syncthing is _not_ a backup system. They explicitly say so, and it should also be obvious that a “syncing system” may try to backup some stuff, but you cannot rely on anything that can _delete_ stuff to be called a backup.
- I did not use it as a backup system. Due to circumstance, my backups were borked and I was too busy/poor to fix them up. Syncthing was used to sync my passwords, Org mode notes, and a specific two-way sync folder with the phone. Importantly, the first two were read only, i.e. the phone only had read access. Regardless, stuff on the remote, i.e the computer were deleted.
- I don't blame Syncthing because I lost my stuff or I had no backups. I blame them however because their software failed destructively. It should of course fail when the config file is weird, but deleting files on two devices despite permissions only allowing readonly access is tho unacceptable. This is kinda equivalent to nginx deleting your htdocs because a symlink in sites-enabled was broken or /.../sites-enabled was a file instead of a folder. If you don't have a backup of htdocs, that's your fault, but that doesn't mean it's a sane way to fail. The best way is to panic and tell the user: "I'm not touching files before this is fixed". Even rm(1) in coreutils has this sort of precautions, not allowing you to run "rm /" willy nilly.
- I should admit that I don't really make that distinction very clear in the blog post itself tho. It was written with anger after the incident, so I was not as nuanced/clear as I could've been.
- The point of the blog post was to advice against relying on Syncthing and to point out that its failure modes were coded sloppily. Tbf it was more like a note to self because never had analytics on my website so I had no idea if anybody read them with any frequency. I've seen it be linked from a couple places recently tho, and I haven't changed my mind, partly because I haven't been keeping up after seeing attitude like https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/issues/4345
Afterwards I did go back to using syncthing for a while to sync files b/w laptop&phone but confined to a specific share folder only. After that brief period I've been relying on KDE Connect to push files between a Linux laptop and an Android phone. I botched backups a couple more times tho, as the big banner on the website testifies to.
This sounds like a variant of the old "you're holding it wrong" blurb.
The problem you're commenting on actually describe a multitude of problems with the application, specially how it causes data loss if it's config happens to get corrupted.
The comment about the need to back up data also seems to not take into account that the service is already used to back up data across multiple devices.