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.
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with modifies it, and doesn’t reconnect to the internet or even LAN that the other client is on, other clients will be out of date and potentially cause file syncing/overwriting issues.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.
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?
SyncThing only syncs when both devices are online at the same time.
So a comon scenario is: You change the DB on your laptop, then shut it down. You open the DB on your desktop. Since the lapotp isn’t online at the same time, you are working with the old DB version. If you change it, you have two competing versions.
I don’t know exactly what happens then; I’m facing it and am procrastinating dealing with it ^^
It creates a sync conflict file, so the data is there but the two differing versions aren’t automatically resolved.
One way out of this is to either have it on a server that’s always connected (less common) or to just have it on your phone. That way you have an intermediary that syncs the changes.
Keepass 2 / Keepass XC actually has a function for this case and does pretty well in merging the two conflicting versions of the database.
That sync will be resolved by syncthing’s logic. It will probably result in lost data.
I would suggest an app that does its own sync logic, like vaultwarden. That way, the client can update the database when it’s back online, instead of an external sync replacing the whole database file.
Synching will create a conflict file when this happens. Nothing is lost but a user must look out for these files and merge manually.
KeepassXC has its own merge logic and will happily absorb changes to a file on disk whilst open. However if two offline machines both change a database then you will get a conflict file and will have to ask keepass to merge them.
Ahh this makes sense
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.
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.