Syncthing 0.14.5 Released, How to Install or Upgrade on Ubuntu 16.04

As you may or may not know, Syncthing is an open source alternative to the proprietary P2P sync tool BitTorrent Sync. Syncthing 0.14.5, codenamed Dysprosium Dragonfly, was released on August 23, 2016. All users are recommended to upgrade ASAP.

Changes in this release includes:

• Improved completion percentage calculations.
• Windows version now requires Go 1.7.
• CPU usage during syncing is reduced.
• Master folder out of sync issue resolved.
• No more temporary index sorting databases.
• Enhanced automatic upgrade.

How to Install or Upgrade Syncthing 0.14.5 on Ubuntu 16.04

For those of you who already have Syncthing installed, you simply need to update your local package index and upgrade software packages on your system.

sudo apt update

sudo apt upgrade

To check which version you have, run the following command:

syncthing -version

If your Ubuntu 16.04 system doesn’t have Syncthing, here’s how to install it via the official APT repository.

Use curl to download the Syncthing GPG key then import the key to Ubuntu system with apt-key.

sudo apt install curl

curl -s https://syncthing.net/release-key.txt | sudo apt-key add -

Then add official Syncthing deb repository with the following command.

echo "deb http://apt.syncthing.net/ syncthing release" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/syncthing.list

Update local package index and install Syncthing on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install syncthing

This deb repository also works on Debian or other Debian/Ubuntu-based Linux distros such as Linux Mint, Elementary OS.

Set Up Syncthing Systemd Service

The official Syncthing deb package comes with the needed systemd service file. Under /lib/systemd/system/ directory, you will find a [email protected] file. You can enable Syncthing to auto start when Ubuntu is booted up by running the below command. Replace username with your actual username.

sudo systemctl enable syncthing@username.service

Now we can start the Syncthing Systemd service with the following command.

sudo systemctl start syncthing@username.service

Let’s check its status.

systemctl status syncthing@username.service

Output:

● [email protected] - Syncthing - Open Source Continuous File Synchronization for linuxbabe
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/[email protected]; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since 六 2016-06-04 17:16:20 CST; 31s ago
     Docs: man:syncthing(1)
 Main PID: 5586 (syncthing)
   CGroup: /system.slice/system-syncthing.slice/[email protected]
    └─5586 /usr/bin/syncthing -no-browser -no-restart -logflags=0

We can see that Syncthing auto start is enabled and it’s running. Now in your Web browser’s address bar, type127.0.0.1:8384 to access the Syncthing Web interface. You can add other Syncthing devices and share folders with them. The default syncing folder is ~/Sync

I hope this tutorial helped you install or upgrade to Syncthing 0.14.5 on your Debian, Ubuntu, or Linux Mint box. If you found this post useful, then subscribe to our free newsletter or follow us on Google+, Twitter or like our Facebook page. Thanks for visiting!