Setup Syncthing on arkos#

Syncthing is a handy tool for syncronizing files between multiple machines. I currently use 2 devices for playing retro games: a Steam Deck and a Anbernic RG353m running arkos My goal here is to syncronize save states and games between the devices. Here’s my goal for a final setup:

../../_images/syncthing_setup.svg

For now, this writeup only covers RetroArch savestate syncing. There are also plenty of guides and advice online for setting up syncthing on the Steam Deck or a NAS, so the focus here will be ArkOS.

In general, I’ve found the best way to setup this kind of sync system is to configure the sync folder on ArkOS, then on a NAS and finally on the Steam Deck

Installing Syncthing on ArkOS#

  1. Configure Retroarch save location

    • By default (at least on my ArkOS version), retroarch will place saves/savestate files in the roms folder of the system they belong to. This can work, but I prefer having all these files in a single location. Using single folders simplifies the syncthing configuration a little, and makes sense for how I store ROMs vs saves on my NAS. To adjust these settings, head to: Retroarch → Settings → Saving → Disable any “Sort save…” options

  2. Identify retroarch savestate location. For my install they were here

    • /home/ark/.config/retroarch/saves/

    • /home/ark/.config/retroarch/states/

  3. Install Syncthing

    • “Enable Remote Services” in ArkOS by navigating to: Options → “Enable Remote Services”. The window that appears during this will briefly show your local ip address if you dont already know it

    • ssh into ark os

      1. ssh ark@<local_ip_addr>

      2. Password (default): ark

    • Install Syncthing

      1. Since ArkOS is ubuntu based, you can follow Syncthings guide

      2. Here’s what I did

        sudo curl -o /usr/share/keyrings/syncthing-archive-keyring.gpg https://syncthing.net/release-key.gpg
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/syncthing-archive-keyring.gpg] https://apt.syncthing.net/ syncthing stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/syncthing.list
sudo apt update
sudo apt install syncthing

Syncthing configuration#

  1. Make syncthing gui accessible

    • To make configuration easy, I suggest making the Syncthing GUI accessible from a local machine other than the 353M. To do this edit syncthings config while ssh’ed into arkos

    • Open ~/.config/syncthing/config.xml

    • Update gui/address. <address>127.0.0.1:8384</address> -> <address>LOCAL_IP_ADDRESS:8384</address> then save.

    • Now startup syncthing from your ssh session with $ syncthing

    • On your host machine, you should now be able to access the syncthing web UI at <ARKOS_LOCAL_IP_ADDR>:8384

  2. From the syncthing gui

    • Remove the default folder sync and create a new one

      1. name: whatever you want

      2. folder path: /home/ark/.config/retroarch

      3. In Ignore Patterns check the enable box

      4. everything else on default. Hit save

      5. Now enter the Ignore Patterns

        // DO NOT IGNORE
!/states
!/saves
// IGNORE (everything else)
*

  3. Now you can add a remote device. in this case i have a NAS that acts as the primary remote device. all other devices sync to it

Note

As you share across devices make SURE you add the ignore pattern everywhere!

Syncthing auto start#

See syncthings guide here

  1. systemctl --user enable syncthing.service

  2. systemctl --user start syncthing.service

Resource optimization#

Syncthing has a nice page detailing what configuration changes you can make to minimize resource utilization

  1. These changes will be made in ~/.config/syncthing/config.xml

  2. For example one thing you can do is disable the web gui with: <gui enabled="false" tls="false" debugging="false">

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