117503445 / syncthing-code

Sync code across multiple devices, based on Syncthing

syncthing-code

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Sync code across multiple devices, based on Syncthing

Motivation

I often switch between different desktop and laptop computers. The simplest solution to keep the code files consistent is to use a PC as a development server and connect to it when I work on other devices. However, this solution has the following disadvantages:

• Internet connection may be unstable, leading to frequent disconnections.
• Some development work cannot be done on a remote server, such as embedded systems and GPU computing.
• Latency can result in a degraded coding experience.

An alternative solution is to set up the development environment on each device and synchronize the code between devices. A common code synchronization approach is to commit to a remote repository using Git and then pull on another device. However, this requires manual commits by the programmer, and I often forget to commit, leaving uncommitted code on a powered-off desktop computer.

Automatic synchronization between devices can be achieved using file synchronization services. Among them, Syncthing is an excellent open-source file synchronization software. However, Syncthing synchronizes all files, and folders like node_modules and target do not need to be synchronized because they can be regenerated from files such as package.json and Cargo.toml. Synchronizing these files consumes significant network bandwidth and significantly reduces the performance of Syncthing.

Syncthing supports ignoring files for synchronization using .stignore. It is possible to consider adding the files ignored in .gitignore to .stignore to ensure that Syncthing only synchronizes code text files. However, there are syntax differences between .gitignore and .stignore, so they cannot be used directly. This project bridges this gap by running the stignore-generator process on each device. The stignore-generator process runs in the background, monitors changes to the .gitignore file, and automatically converts it to a .stignore file.

Usage

Assume that the project paths on each device are located under ~/workspace, such as ~/workspace/project1 and ~/workspace/project2.

1. Sync the ~/workspace folder using Syncthing.

2. Run the stignore-generator service, which can be done using Docker or Systemd.

Docker

Prepare the docker-compose.yml file:

version: "3.9"
services:
  stignore_generator:
    image: 117503445/stignore-generator
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - ~/workspace:/workspace

Start stignore-generator:

docker compose up -d

Systemd

Download the stignore-generator executable:

curl -L -O $(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/117503445/syncthing-code/releases/latest | grep "browser_download_url" | cut -d '"' -f 4) && chmod +x stignore-generator && mv stignore-generator /usr/bin

Install the stignore-generator service:

cat << EOF > /etc/systemd/system/stignore-generator.service
[Unit]
Description=stignore-generator

[Service]
Type=simple
Restart=always
RestartSec=1
ExecStart=/usr/bin/stignore-generator

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF

Enable the stignore-generator service:

systemctl enable --now stignore-generator

Notes

The specific generation process is as follows:

1. Ensure that .stignore contains #include .stgitignore. If .stignore does not exist, create it. If .stignore exists but does not contain #include .stgitignore, add it to the end of the file.

2. Convert the contents of .gitignore to .stgitignore and save it in the same directory as .stignore.

This generation process allows users to add custom ignore rules in .stignore without being overwritten by stignore-generator. Typically, configuration files containing confidential information are also included in .gitignore, and programmers can use the ! syntax to synchronize these files between their devices.

Acknowledgments

• Syncthing and gitignore provided the basic idea for the solution.