Simple Sync

A simple tool to monitor for local file modifications and sync changes to a remote machine. Use your favourite editor locally, and run on a remote machine.

Why?

If you need to edit files on a remote machine there are several choices:

SSH and edit using vi
Use an SFTP program and edit individual files
Mount the remote machine using Fuse
Use Unison

They're all suitable for different purposes. Some are slow, some don't allow you to use a local editor, and some are difficult to setup.

Simple Sync runs on your local machine and:

Lets you edit local files at full speed using a local editor (such as VSCode) and get all the goodness out of its features
Will monitor files for changes and sync them to a remote machine

That's it! It's faster than using Fuse, and doesn't have all the complexity of trying to get Unison to work.

How?

Simple Sync monitors a directory for file changes and then issues a series of scp commands (to upload changes) or rsync commands (to delete files).

It will monitor:

New files
Updated files
Deleted files
New directories
Deleted directories
Renamed files and directories

Installation

Clone the repo to a location where you keep code. Then install:

npm install

And finally:

npm link

You can now access the program anywhere via simplesync.

To use

Simple Sync needs a local and a remote path, and will sync from the local to the remote. You can pass this on the command line:

simplesync --local /users/john/mysite --remote john@remotemachine.com:/home/user/mysite

The local value should be a directory on your local machine.
The remote should be an rsync-style SSH+path. You can use any valid Rsync format you want, including machine:/path if you have your SSH config setup

Optional arguments:

--test - Switch on test mode and show what commands will be run, but doesn't run them. Useful to check you have everything configured right
--verbose - Outputs all files that are changed and the commands that are run. Auto-enabled in --test mode
--scp - Additional arguments to pass to scp (such as SSH identity file)
--rsync - Additional arguments to pass to rsync (such as SSH identity file)

Configuration File

You can store arguments in a configuration file called .simplesyncrc. This can exist in the current directory, or any parent directory up to ~/.simplesyncrc.

It is a JSON file as follows:

{
	"local": "/Users/john/simplesync/",
	"remote": "machine:/home/user/simplesync/",
	"scp": "",
	"rsync": ""
}

Full Sync

If you make changes on the remote machine and want to sync them to your local machine you can run:

simplesync down

Similarly you can sync you local directory to the remote machine:

simplesync up

Note that this can delete files and local modifications - be careful and use the --test argument!

Also note that syncs are done relative to the directory you are in. For example, if you have --local set to /home/sync and you are in /home/sync/subdir then it will sync subdir only, and not anything else in /home/sync

Caveats

Simple Sync only syncs one way from local to remote, and does not check for local modifications. If you edit a remote file, and then edit the same local file, Simple Sync will upload the local file over the remote file without warning.

It is advised you use the --test argument when configuring so you can see what will happen when syncing.

Absolutley no responsability is taken for any damage caused by this program!

johngodley / simplesync