Ok, I think it's like exactly what you are looking for, so I'd say taking a look is definitely worth the time.

Is it possible to use unison on more then two computers?

Yes. The easiest way to achieve this is using one of the computers as the "master" and have all others sync their data only with the master. This is what I referred to as "star setup" in a previous post.

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I might have found a turnkey solution of sorts: nethserver. Based on CentOS 6.6. CentOS 7 base in the near future. Uses SoGo for calendar and contacts server, there is a third-party module for tiny tiny rss, fetchmail and dovecot already installed to retrieve my POP3 mail and host locally with IMAP, nice web browser interface for configurations. Looks like a great community for helping one another. I downloaded the ISO and need to tinker.

Anybody with comments or experience with nethserver?

I stumbled across this and sounds like something the OP could use. "I want everything stored on my property under my control."
https://syncthing.net/

I'm curious if OP found a solution that worked for them however?

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Life has gotten "in the way" the past many weeks, but I am still thinking about solutions and writing notes. As I mentioned in my previous post, I plan to look into nethserver. Much of what I want to do depends upon centralizing more than syncing. I will add syncthing to my list of candidates. Thanks.

There is a package on Debian called owncloud. It should go some way towards meeting upnort's needs.


Currently I an going through the installation process and will post again when (if?) I succeed, it might take a few days as time is limited.

I will be using a RaspberryPi with usb harddive as my cloud server. Currently I access the Pi with ssh and vnc. In the past have used samba and tablet/computers but not really very useful.

I would recommend syncthing as well.

Personal experience? I've yet to use it so curious how well it works.

It works just like bittorrent sync, except that it is open source. The performance is much better than ownCloud according to my experience.

I haven't had much time to play but after two installs it is was working. When I tried today I cannot get to see the fies that are stored. While I can log in, it just doesn't show the files, used two pc's with same result. It didn't install owncloud quite where I wanted it (ny mistake -should read manual first) but was able to ssh into the RaspberryPi and change it with simlinks and also upload files directly with mc file manager. After that it worked as I wanted. I could upload/dowmload files *.pdf.

The two instals were because I already had a lighttpd server running which prevented owncloud from installing properly. Owncloud also wants Apache as its server, really too much for a RaspberryPi B+. It does say about using other servers and I found page on web that used Ngnix as server but that was for owncloud v7 not the current v8.

Conclusions.

Need to spend a lot of time with the manuals.

Not a lot different from using rsync and sshfs

It doesn't choke if a file with same name exists just apends -2

Based on nothing specific, I am leaning toward unison or syncthing as a primary tool to sync specific files.

I have been looking into owncloud. While my schedule right now limits me to researching and note taking, I am thinking owncloud might be overkill for my needs. I am leaning toward first testing radicale as my calendar and contacts server, but the radicale devs are clear that they do not strictly support the standards. I do not know if that is really important as long as I stick to one of the known compatible clients for maintaining the files.

Despite all the frenzy in the news about owncloud, I continually run into reviews by unsatisfied users. My use case is fairly simple so perhaps I should browse those reviews with charity.

I've used unison since it being mentioned here for syncing up my media library. When I add or remove media, I run unison media and it updates it. If both sides have been altered, it'll ask which one I want to go with.

I have this as my .unison/media.prf

Apparently there's quite a bit of config you can do.

Short on time to go into things properly. If only they worked as supposed to my time would go further and would get more done.

I found reason I was not getting anything was that after rebooting the drive had not been mounted. Still strange things happening though.

On one computer using the raspi name brings up the owncloud log-in page but it won't allow me to log in. I have to put in the IP number and load lpg-in page then it works. On other computer and android tablet both work with the raspi name. Trying to change directory or up-load with the tablet is just about impossible.

In general it doesn't seem to easily sync up the three with raspi. Still have to read the whole manual which might help!!

Looking at unison it only syncs two machines, is that correct?

Been awhile and I finally got around to really doing this since I wanted to keep my desktop and laptop in sync.

I ended up going with syncthing and have a pretty nice setup which OP was probably looking for
First, I needed to centralize all my data I wanted synced to one folder, without having to modify any existing programs.
Second, this is going to work best with a always on computer/server with access to the internet.

To centralize, I grab directories/files for programs I wanted synced (like firefox, thunderbird, pidgin, liferea, etc) and I moved them all to a sync directory (eg ~/.sync)
Then, I symbolically linked them to their original location (ln -s ~/.sync/.thunderbird ~/.thunderbird) so the programs continued to act normally.

Then I added the devices, laptop and always-on server and shared ~/.sync. Then I repeated the above for the laptop.
Because the server is always on, there's always something to pull the latest updates to prevent conflicts. All three store .sync on a encrypted, restricted location as well.

Now I can switch from my desktop to my laptop and open it - all my emails and tabs are there!

Now, I have all the same software and OS on my laptop and desktop, different versions could make this method go bad.
But it's really nice. It takes a little while to figure it all out, but once setup it works smoothly!