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This repository provides a shell script that uses lsyncd to sync a folder live to one or multiple machines. It uses rsync, therefore a ssh connection to the machine is enough. The script also supports sending out notifications with a list of updated files plus sophisticated ignore mechanism. For other features and tips refer to the section about tips and features. The usage is simple:

  • msync start machine1 machine2: Syncs the current working directory to the home folder of machine1 and machine2.
  • msync or msync status: Lists running instances with their id.
  • msync stop <id>: Stops the sync session with id.

The script can be easily installed as a Nix package or can be installed manually. The Nix package has the advantage that all dependencies are automatically fetched.

Tips and Features

Notifications

msync sends out a notification with changed files on each change in the synced directory.

Image of notification sent out by msync.

Ignoring Files

msync reads and applies the excludes specified in .gitignore. When there are files that you want to force sync, add a comment line with # noldignore to your .gitignore. Every pattern that is listed after this comment, will be excluded when reading the .gitignore. Put any files that you want to exclude, but not via .gitignore, in a custom file called .ldignore. msync will read and apply the patterns in that file identical to patterns in .gitignore.

SSH Multiplexing

lsyncd, the tool that is used for synchronization, spawns rsync every time a change needs to be synchronized. This leads to problems with medium to high latency connections. I can in general recommend using SSH Multiplexing. That configuration makes any further connection attempts after the initial connection instant, since the already authorized session is used for the setup.

Nix package

Test it out without installation:

nix run github:fabian-thomas/machine-sync

Install it permanently:

nix profile install github:fabian-thomas/machine-sync

Manual installation

Dependencies (collected from default.nix and rsync-notify-multiple.nix):

  • coreutils
  • findutils
  • lsyncd
  • ps
  • libnotify
  • rsync
  • openssh

If you move the script to another place, set LSYNCD_TEMPLATE=/path/to/cloned/repo/template.lua.