Synchronize your folders using Syncthing inside a Tailscale private network

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We shall avoid using Syncthing over the public network directly to secure our servers. In this article, I will introduce how to synchronize folders using Syncthing inside your Tailscale private network.

Follow Steps 1-5 on this article or instructions on the Tailscale official website to install Tailscale.

Follow Steps 1-6 below or this article to set up Syncthing on your Linux server (it is identical to the official article).

Step 1: Add the release PGP keys

sudo curl -o /usr/share/keyrings/syncthing-archive-keyring.gpg https://syncthing.net/release-key.gpg

Step 2: Add the “stable” channel to your APT sources

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

Step 3: Add the “candidate” channel to your APT sources:

echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/syncthing-archive-keyring.gpg] https://apt.syncthing.net/ syncthing candidate" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/syncthing.list

Step 4: Update the list of available packages & install Syncthing

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install syncthing

Step 5: Automatically start Syncthing service at boot. Replace <username> with your Linux username

sudo systemctl enable [email protected]

Step 6: Start Syncthing service manually. Replace <username> with your Linux username

sudo systemctl start syncthing@>username>.service

Step 7: Access server local ip:8384 (In my case, 10.10.10.2:8384 for server1 and 10.10.11.2:8384 for server2) or the device’s Tailscale IP if your computer has already joined the Tailscale private network

Step 8: On the top-right corner, click Actions -> Show ID on the second device (server2). Copy second device (server 2) ID

 

Step 9: On the bottom-right corner, click Add Remote Device on the first device (server1). Paste second device (server 2) ID and Device Name to corresponding rows.

Step 10: Click the Add Device button on the second device (server 2).

Step 11: Done. Create & delete files on different devices to verify whether Syncthing sets up correctly.