Install Bit Torrent Sync on Ubuntu

There are some great tools for syncing files over the internet available to us, but one stands out from the rest in regards of technology used and possible use cases.

A public beta version was released in June this year and now it’s available for Windows, Mac, Linux, FreeBSD, Android and iOS. Today we are going to setup BitTorrent Sync on Ubuntu Server. You may need btsync on your server for Backing up configuration and database files, Access code repositories or Create a synchronized documents network folder for your company.

1. Go to a temporary folder
   $ cd /tmp
2. Download the correct version of BitTorrent Sync, depending on your system (i386 or x64)
   $ wget -O btsync.tar.gz http://download-lb.utorrent.com/endpoint/btsync/os/linux-i386/track/stable
   OR
   $ wget -O btsync.tar.gz http://download-lb.utorrent.com/endpoint/btsync/os/linux-x64/track/stable
3. Unpack the downloaded compressed tar
   $ tar -xf btsync.tar.gz
4. Now we move the executable to our /usr/local/bin directory
   $ sudo mv btsync /usr/local/bin/
5. Create a default sync folder
   $ mkdir ~/.sync
6. We need to create a confguration file for btsync by dumping a sample configuration file
   $ btsync --dump-sample-config > ~/.btsync
7. Edit the configuration file with
   $ nano ~/.btsync
   and change "storage_path" to reflect the sync folder we created above (Eg /home/yourusername/.sync) and add a username and a password to secure btsync admin panel. Make sure you uncomment the lines containing login information so they are read by btsync
8. To be able to easily control btsync daemon we need to create a service init.d script and make it executable
   $ sudo touch /etc/init.d/btsync
$ sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/btsync
9. Paste the following content in our /etc/init.d/btsync script and make sure you change the user variable with your username.
   $ sudo nano /etc/init.d/btsync

    

   #! /bin/sh
   ### BEGIN INIT INFO
   # Provides:   btsync
   # Required-Start: $syslog $remote_fs
   # Required-Stop:  $syslog $remote_fs
   # Should-Start:   $local_fs
   # Should-Stop:    $local_fs
   # Default-Start:  2 3 4 5
   # Default-Stop:   0 1 6
   # Short-Description:  btsync - Bittorent SyncApp
   # Description:    btsync - Bittorent SyncApp
   ### END INIT INFO
   
   user="yourusername" # YOU MUST REPLACE THIS BY YOUR USER
   
   group=`id -ng "$user"`
   
   # the full path to the filename where you store your btsync configuration
   config="`su -c 'echo $HOME' $user`/.btsync"
   
   # set of options to run with
   options=""
   
   PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
   DAEMON=/usr/local/bin/btsync
   DAEMON_ARGS="--config $config"
   NAME=btsync
   DESC=btsync
   
   RUNDIR=/var/run/syncapp
   PIDFILE=$RUNDIR/syncapp.pid
   
   test -x $DAEMON || exit 0
   
   if [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ]
   then
     . /etc/default/$NAME
   fi
   
   set -e
   
   case "$1" in
     start)
     echo -n "Starting $DESC: "
     mkdir -p $RUNDIR
     touch $PIDFILE
     chown $user:$group $RUNDIR $PIDFILE
     chmod 755 $RUNDIR
   
     if [ -n "$ULIMIT" ]
     then
       ulimit -n $ULIMIT
     fi
   
     if start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --umask 007 --pidfile $PIDFILE --chuid $user:$group --exec $DAEMON -- $DAEMON_ARGS
     then
       echo "$NAME."
     else
       echo "failed"
     fi
     ;;
     stop)
     echo -n "Stopping $DESC: "
     if start-stop-daemon --stop --retry forever/TERM/1 --quiet --oknodo --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON
     then
       echo "$NAME."
     else
       echo "failed"
     fi
     rm -f $PIDFILE
     sleep 1
     ;;
   
     restart|force-reload)
     ${0} stop
     ${0} start
     ;;
   
     status)
     echo -n "$DESC is "
     if start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --signal 0 --name ${NAME} --pidfile ${PIDFILE}
     then
       echo "running"
     else
       echo "not running"
       exit 1
     fi
     ;;
   
     *)
     echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/$NAME {start|stop|restart|force-reload}" >&2
     exit 1
     ;;
   esac
   
   exit 0

10. Lets make our init.d script start with the server
    $ cd /etc/init.d/ && sudo update-rc.d btsync defaults
11. Start btsync daemon with the following command and go to http://yourserverip:8888 to add folders you want to synchronize
    $ sudo service btsync start