Split-syncthing

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Syncthing is an awesome piece of software used to keep files in sync across multiple devices using end-to-end encryption without requiring port forwarding or leaving files on a third-party server.

This guide is intended to allow syncing of files in netvm-less qubes across two (or more) devices running Qubes. This could be used to sync bookmarks for split-browser, or for keeping a KeepassXC file up to date.

Requirements

You will need to install syncthing in the template

:exclamation:This relies on the previous guide for using qubes-sync with multiple qubes (https://forum.qubes-os.org/t/use-qubes-sync-with-multiple-clients-and-one-server/19780). It assumes this directory structure exists:

/rw/syncdir/
  authorized_keys/
  clientvm1/
    writable/
  clientvm2/
    writable/

In this structure, all directories except writable are owned by root. Each writable folder is owned by a single user per client qube.

Set up syncthing

Run syncthing as root (this is used to manage file ownership correctly, and it’s not a security risk for an appvm):

sudo syncthing -home /rw/syncdir/syncthing-config

Add a new folder with the label “syncdir” and set the path to /rw/syncdir. Add these ignore patterns for this folder:

/authorized_keys/*
/sshd_config-addition
/syncthing-config

Enable “Copy Ownership From Parent” in Actions > Advanced > Folder “syncdir”

Add a new device and share the folder with it. Accept the share on the new device.

Once the folder has been synced to the new device, manually set permissions to the correct user for the new device. Do this for every /writable folder.

chown -R sync-$CLIENTNAME /rw/syncdir/$CLIENTNAME/writable

Start syncthing automatically

Append this to /rw/config/rc.local:

sudo syncthing -no-browser -home /rw/syncdir/syncthing-config

Set up split-browser sync

Create a new file /etc/split-browser/00-sync.bash in the template for split-browser

SB_DATA_DIR=${SB_DATA_DIR:-~/sync/split-browser}

Then copy any existing data to the sync folder in the split-browser appvm:

cp -r ~/.local/share/split-browser ~/sync/
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That would place the bookmarks.tsv file and the logins directory directly into ~/sync, or directly into $XDG_DATA_HOME if that variable is not empty. To place them into ~/sync/split-browser (and ignore $XDG_DATA_HOME), use

SB_DATA_DIR=${SB_DATA_DIR:-~/sync/split-browser}

Instead of editing /etc/split-browser/10-defaults.bash, if you leave the file in its original state and put the line into a separate file like /etc/split-browser/00-sync.bash (so that 00 is sorted before 10) this will avoid configuration file conflicts during package updates.

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Thanks for the correction! I’ve updated the guide to fix it

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hey guys, does this work on 4.2?

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From what i gather with my limited understanding i would need double the amount of disk space (APPvm data has to be copied to SyncthingServer for distribution) if i wanted to use syncthing to keep qubesOS APPvm’s in sync between multiple QubesOS devices (desktop < - > notebook)?

Of course for the case where one does not want to use any external dynamic setup with syncthing.