Ansible Role Syncthing

This is an Ansible role that installs Syncthing on Linux. It uses the tarball from the official website so this role is not dependent on any package manager.

This role can also optionally configure the devices and folders on the Syncthing instance.

Tested on Fedora 36, should work on any Linux distribution that the Syncthing tarball supports.

Requirements

These platforms are supported:

• Ubuntu 20.04
• Ubuntu 22.04
• Debian 11
• Debian 12
• EL 8 (Tested on Rocky Linux 8)
• EL 9 (Tested on Rocky Linux 9)
• Fedora 40
• openSUSE Leap 15.5

Role Variables

Variable	Default	Description
syncthing_version	v1.23.4	Version of Syncthing to install.
syncthing_arch	amd64	Architecture for the Syncthing package.
syncthing_url	See defaults/main.yml	Base URL for the Syncthing tarball.
syncthing_user	{{ ansible_user_id }}	User to configure Syncthing for.
syncthing_install_user	true	Whether to configure and enable syncthing to run as this user
syncthing_device_name	{{ inventory_hostname }}	Name of the Syncthing device to other devices.
syncthing_hosts	{{ ansible_play_hosts_all }}	List of hosts (including self) to use as Syncthing peers.
syncthing_configure	true	Whether to configure Syncthing.
syncthing_configure_firewall	true	Whether to configure firewall rules for Syncthing to work locally.
syncthing_bootstrap_only	false	Whether to only configure Syncthing once.
syncthing_gui_enabled	true	Whether to enable the Syncthing GUI.
syncthing_gui_address	127.0.0.1:8384	Address to bind the Syncthing GUI to.
syncthing_gui_apikey	""	API key to use for the Syncthing GUI.
syncthing_gui_theme	default	Theme to use for the Syncthing GUI.

Configuration

This Ansible role will overwrite your Syncthing configuration, be careful!

This role by default will also overwrite any manual changes, if you want to just use this role to install and set up Syncthing one time, and do the rest manually, set syncthing_bootstrap_only to true.
Otherwise, every time this role is run, it will overwrite configuration that is not stored in the Ansible variables.

Devices

The syncthing_devices variable is used to configure remote devices on the Syncthing instance. This variable is not required, if this variable is not set, this role will generate it based on the other hosts in this play.
If you want to configure devices manually, you can set this variable yourself.

Static list of devices

syncthing_devices: # Static list of devices
  - name: "My Laptop"
    device_id: "AAAAAAA-BBBBBBB-CCCCCCC-DDDDDDD-EEEEEEE-FFFFFFF-GGGGGGG-HHHHHHH"
    address: dynamic
  - name: "My PC"
    device_id: "AAAAAAA-BBBBBBB-CCCCCCC-DDDDDDD-EEEEEEE-FFFFFFF-GGGGGGG-HHHHHHH"
    address: dynamic

A likely scenario is that you just want to add existing hosts not managed by this Ansible role (like your mobile phone) to this list, in which case you can use the variable syncthing_external_devices.

syncthing_external_devices: # Append to auto generated devices
  - name: "My Non-Ansible Managed Phone"
    device_id: "AAAAAAA-BBBBBBB-CCCCCCC-DDDDDDD-EEEEEEE-FFFFFFF-GGGGGGG-HHHHHHH"
    address: dynamic

Folders

The syncthing_folders variable is a dict of dicts. The key is the folder ID, and the value is a dict of folder configuration.

syncthing_folders:
  sync:
    label: Sync
    path: "/home/{{ syncthing_user }}/Sync"

The key is used as the folder ID in Syncthing, this must be the same on every device you want using this folder. When this key is set on multiple hosts this folder will be shared across these hosts.

If you defined hosts that are not in the Ansible play (with syncthing_external_devices or syncthing_devices), you will need to specify that this folder should be shared with those hosts by giving the ID in the list manual_shared_with.

Example for external devices

syncthing_folders:
  sync:
    label: Sync
    path: "/home/{{ syncthing_user }}/Sync"
    manual_shared_with: # Append to auto generated shared devices
      - "AAAAAAA-BBBBBBB-CCCCCCC-DDDDDDD-EEEEEEE-FFFFFFF-GGGGGGG-HHHHHHH"

The folder configuration can include label, path, type, rescanIntervalS, fsWatcherEnabled , fsWatcherDelayS, ignorePerms and autoNormalize. The label and path keys are required for each folder.

You can set the default configuration for all folders by setting the syncthing_folders_default variable. This will also be used in the UI as the defaults for management outside of Ansible.

Defaults

syncthing_folder_defaults: # Will be used if missing from folder
  path: "/home/{{ syncthing_user }}/Sync"
  type: sendreceive
  rescanIntervalS: "3600"
  fsWatcherEnabled: "true"
  fsWatcherDelayS: "10"
  ignorePerms: "false"
  autoNormalize: "true"

Example

The following is an example of a playbook that uses this role.

inventory.ini

[syncthing]
desktop
laptop

group_vars/syncthing.yml

syncthing_external_devices: # Append to auto generated devices
  - name: "My Non-Ansible Managed Phone"
    device_id: "AAAAAAA-BBBBBBB-CCCCCCC-DDDDDDD-EEEEEEE-FFFFFFF-GGGGGGG-HHHHHHH"
    address: dynamic

The device entries for desktop and laptop will be generated automatically based on the hosts in the play.

host_vars/desktop.yml

syncthing_folders:
  all:
    label: Shared with all
    path: /home/{{ syncthing_user }}/Sync
    manual_shared_with: # Append to auto generated shared devices
      - "AAAAAAA-BBBBBBB-CCCCCCC-DDDDDDD-EEEEEEE-FFFFFFF-GGGGGGG-HHHHHHH"
  phone:
    label: Shared with my phone
    path: /home/{{ syncthing_user }}/Phone
    manual_shared_with: # Append to auto generated shared devices
      - "AAAAAAA-BBBBBBB-CCCCCCC-DDDDDDD-EEEEEEE-FFFFFFF-GGGGGGG-HHHHHHH"

host_vars/laptop.yml

syncthing_folders:
  all:
    label: Shared with all
    path: /home/{{ syncthing_user }}/Sync
    manual_shared_with: # Append to auto generated shared devices
      - "AAAAAAA-BBBBBBB-CCCCCCC-DDDDDDD-EEEEEEE-FFFFFFF-GGGGGGG-HHHHHHH"

Since the phone key doesn't appear here, it won't be shared with this device.

playbook.yml

- hosts: syncthing
  roles:
    - ansible_role_syncthing

Dependencies

None

Example Playbook

- name: Use diademiemi.syncthing role
  hosts: "{{ target | default('syncthing') }}"
  roles:
    - role: "diademiemi.syncthing"
      tags: ['diademiemi', 'solaar', 'setup']

License

MIT

Author Information

• diademiemi (@diademiemi)

Role Testing

This repository comes with Molecule that run in Podman on the supported platforms. Install Molecule by running

pip3 install -r requirements.txt

Run the tests with

molecule test