BitTorrent Sync is a powerful cross-platform file sharing application. Think of it as a decentralized version of Dropbox with no charges (it's free), no limits, and no middle-man.
UPDATE: BitTorrent Sync is now Resilio Sync. The executable changed from btsync to rslsync. btsyncctl works with both.
btsyncctl is a simple bash script meant to automate the process of starting, stopping, and checking the status of the Resilio Sync application (rslsync) running on a Linux desktop or server. rslsync runs as a non-privileged user and any user with adequate sudo privileges can use btsyncctl to pass it basic controls like start, stop, and status.
git clone https://github.com/devhen/btsyncctl.git
sudo cp btsyncctl/btsyncctl /usr/bin/
sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/btsyncctl
On RHEL / CentOS / Fedora:
sudo adduser rslsync
On Debian / Ubuntu:
sudo adduser rslsync --disabled-password
Get rslsync for your system architecture (i386 or x64) from here: https://www.resilio.com/platforms/desktop/
Repositories for Debian, Ubuntu, Redhat, CentOS, and Fedora can be found here: https://help.resilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/206178924
Put the btsync binary somewhere it can be executed by your btsync user, such as ~/bin:
sudo su -l rslsync
mkdir ~/bin
cp /path/to/rslsync ~/bin/
sudo su -l rslsync
btsyncctl --dump-sample-config > /home/rslsync/rslsync.conf
Customize your config file as you see fit. Most settings can be left on their defaults but I recommend setting device_name (to your hostname, for example), and setting force_https to true.
sudo btsyncctl start
sudo btsyncctl status
This shows whether rslsync is running and if so, the version number, architecture (32-bit or 64-bit), listening ports (if you have netstat installed), time since it was started, and how much memory its using.
The default WebUI port is 8888. If you are running rslsync on your local computer you should be able to access the WebUI right away by going to:
https://localhost:8888
If you are running rslsync on a remote server you'll probably want to open the WebUI port for your IP address only.
On RHEL 7 / CentOS 7 / Fedora with firewalld:
sudo firewall-cmd --add-rich-rule='rule family="ipv4" source address="YOUR.IP.ADDR.HERE" port port="8888" protocol="tcp" accept' --permanent
sudo firewall-cmd --reload
On Debian / Ubuntu with ufw:
sudo ufw allow from YOUR.IP.ADDR.HERE to any port 8888 proto tcp
You should now be able to access the WebUI by going to:
https://yourdomain.com:8888
The first time you access the WebUI it will prompt you to set the WebUI username and password.
Without your listening port open to the public, the rslsync network may have to provide a "relay server" to peers that are unable to connect to your rslsync server. Using relay servers can slow down transfer speeds so for best performance you should open rslsync's listening port by setting listening_port in rslsync.conf to an available port and then opening that port in your firewall.
On RHEL 7 / CentOS 7 / Fedora with firewalld:
sudo firewall-cmd --add-port=12345/tcp --permanent
sudo firewall-cmd --add-port=12345/udp --permanent
sudo firewall-cmd --reload
On Debian / Ubuntu with ufw:
sudo ufw allow 12345
If you are behind a router you should enable UPnP in rslsync.conf by setting use_upnp to true. If UPnP is not enabled on your router you will need to manually forward the listening port to the IP of the machine running rslsync.
sudo btsyncctl stop
If the first argument passed to btsyncctl isn't start, stop, or status the arguments will be passed along to the rslsync binary. Therefore, you can pass arguments that rslsync supports, for example sudo btsyncctl --help and sudo btsyncctl --dump-sample-config.
To access, add, or make changes to the files synced by rslsync you'll want to make rslsync's home directory group-writable and sticky:
sudo chmod g+rwxs /home/rslsync
And then add yourself to the rslsync user's group. You'll need to logout and back in, or start a new shell, for this to take effect:
sudo usermod -a -G rslsync myusername
To change the default permissions rslsync uses for new files, set the umask by adding this line to the rslsync user's ~/.bashrc:
umask 0007