I recently switched my desktop to Linux mint. Overall it seems to work well for me. The one exception is that my password manager, Keepass, won’t work. I currently use Gdrive to sync the database between devices. It works very well for this purpose. Is there another way I can sync this file as seemlessly as Gdrive? It would to work for an Android phone and Mint PC.
I’m surprised no one recommended syncthing.
Syncthing lets you sync changes on any folder/drive across multiple devices via the local network - no cloud needed. I currently use it for my keepass database, Music folder and Documents folder. It’s als very simple to set up.
Only downside to this is that if your house burns down you’ll lose everything - but a friend suggested me to have important files on an encrypted tarball stored in the cloud.
Only downside to this is that if your house burns down you’ll lose everything - but a friend suggested me to have important files on an encrypted tarball stored in the cloud.
For those with lots of files and poor upload speeds but blessed with a desk at work, also consider stashing an encrypted disk in a drawer / fake plant / etc.
Second Syncthing, it is very fast, reliable, and flexible.
I used it coming from FileSync and Dropbox, and I had to change the way I thought about my shared folders to architect a good system for me. Eg: each root shared folder should serve a particular function that determines which devices it should be shared to (does this share need to be accessible in your phone? Laptop? PC? NAS?).
FYI you can set up untrusted peer sync to have your files all synching to another device (SFF device at your friend or relatives house, or a cloud server). That eliminates the concern of your house burning down, while keeping all of your Syncthing data secure and not worrying about it being stolen or accessed. If your house burns down you can connect back to the untrusted peer sync, put in your passphrase, and your data will all return.
The amount of headaches I had setting this up… I can’t tell you how hard I tried.
I think in the end I figured out it doesn’t like vlans very much if you don’t want to use their relay.
In the case of house burn down, because Syncthing stores a 1-1 copy of the folder on every device in the network, you would still have your data even a single device survives the incident, such as a phone, or a laptop
I might get downvoted for suggesting proprietary software for this, but if you were happy with Google Drive before, Dropbox seems like the easiest drop in replacement. It has a native Linux syncing client.
if you don’t mind a self-hosted alternative, I use dufs. It is barebones so some understanding of hosting services is required
If most of your passwords are actually for Websites, Firefox has Profile letting you manage passwords across devices.
I felt really dumb when I realized you weren’t syncing a “keep ass” database. Thought it was some trendy next gen database created by someone who really dgaf.
Foldersync was my move before I switched to a custom ROM, it’s proprietary but reliable and not expensive.
SyncThing
The downside is that if a device you aren’t online with modifies it, and doesn’t reconnect to the internet or even LAN that the other client is on, other clients will be out of date and potentially cause file syncing/overwriting issues.
But SyncThing is a good tool for this.
KeePass(XC & 2Android) has a really excellent merge algorithm. I rarely have issues wiþ merging, but yeah - you do have to watch out for sync files and merge DBs ASAP.
I’m not sure how Drive would address þis, þough. Any conflicting, offline change is going to cause a conflict, and only KeePass knows how to merge DB conflicts.
I personally opted for a self hosted instance of Vaultwarden myself.
Is offline file editing an issue with all file syncing tools?
I’ve been using Syncthing for a year or so and not noticed that it’s any worse or better at this than GDrive or Dropbox
Different sync tools manage files differently. And it likely depends on the file type.
For a password manager, I’m not sure if this is an issue since I’m only changing the database file while connected to the internet. Am I overlooking something?
It should work for you! Especially if you are connected to the internet. But of course, wanted to bring up the one flaw I could think of up in case it would be an issue for you.
Seconded. Great bit of software.
I’ve been using nextcloud for years for this. Using Android and Linux and Windows.
Mailbox.org with WebDAV. The classical Keepass runs on Linux (although it does not look nice). On Android you can use Kepass2Android.
What do you mean Keepass doesn’t work? https://keepassxc.org/ comes as Flatpak.
Keepass works but you need a way to sync the database file between devices. This is the part that doesn’t work.
Syncthing is an option on the desktop side and it works with Syncthing-Fork on Android. It takes a bit of setting up, but I’ve been using a setup like this for years now.
Git
Thanks to everyone recommending Syncthing. I just set that up on all my devices and it’s pretty much purpose built for what I’m doing. A little bit fidly to set up but not that bad and it seems to just work now.
I use rclone run by crontab.
I used to use Filen for this, but it never worked very well. The file provider path it returned to Keepass2android was only temporary, so it would break periodically. Did Filen change how that works?
I eventually started using Syncthing instead. I connect to my home wi-fi often enough that it’s never too far out of sync with my home PC. And since it’s a local file, there’s no issue with using absolute paths.
I actually do this with a self hosted nextcloud instance.
