Smart sync/Sync Server vs rsync

[huotg01]

For those who had a look at the thread
"WD My Book 4Tb attached to RT-AC68u & Fw:376.48_1"
the final goal was to use 2 ASUS routers, including one in a remote location, attach a USB drive to each of them, backing up on it my stuff, and then send this backup on the disk on the remote location.

I thought that what Asus calls Smart sync/Sync server would do the job, but I'm not really sure of understanding the underlying process. I think that Asus webstorage has to be involved in it ?

Basically I just want to transfer my backup to the remote location, and do the same for the backup produced on the remote location, i.e. storing it on my USB attached disk at my location.

What is the simplest and most efficient way of doing that ? Using the Asus features (Sync server, if I don't have to also transfer the data to Asus Web Storage), or rsync, or something else ?

Thank you for helping me to have a better understanding and taking the right approach.

GH

 

[RMerlin]

Use the Sync Server tab under AiCloud - it's designed to do router-to-router sync. I have no idea however how reliable or secure this is.

 

[huotg01]

Use the Sync Server tab under AiCloud - it's designed to do router-to-router sync. I have no idea however how reliable or secure this is.

Thanks Merlin to encourage me to have a second look at it.
In fact it was exactly what I was doing.
What was confusing is the fact that the tab "Smart sync" doesn't propose the "router to router" (or sync server) option. You have to go through the tab "Sync Server", but...sometimes it's not so simple.

I did follow the process which generates an "invitation" for your remote friend. The remote friend is suppose to click on the generated hyperlink to complete the process, and enter the special code to confirm the "transaction". It was not working, and not knowing what to expect, I went to think that something was wrong with my installation, or Asus feature was just not working. At that point I started this thread.

After receiving your answer, I had a second look at it and found what was wrong. When installing my partner router, months ago, I choose "Authentication Method: https" in order to secure the accesses to his router from my home. Therefore his local router access URL was: https://router.asus.com:xxxx where xxxx is the HTTPS port.
ASUS doesn't take into account this fact (it cannot) when it generates the hyperlink.

The end result? When your remote partner click on the provided link (as generated by ASUS), it goes nowhere because the hyperlink is something like
http://router.asus.com/31728q8p8zqwfdfe3reff.....
After changing the beginning of the URL with https://router.asus.com:xxxx/.....
the procedure did work. "Et voilà pourquoi votre fille est muette...".

Anyway, I also made a change to the local access procedure, but this story could interest other people.

That said, I still don't know how well the sync is going to work. Will see.
In the mean time I noticed that there is no way to pause the sync process other that by removing completely the entry in the Smart sync tab.

Thanks,

GH

 

[huotg01]

Router to Router sync

[...]That said, I still don't know how well the sync is going to work. Will see.
In the mean time I noticed that there is no way to pause the sync process other that by removing completely the entry in the Smart sync tab.

This is a follow up to my sad story about using the ASUS "router to Router" sync feature.

As I said previously, I figured out how to set up the feature (or I think that I found out...) on my AC68 and on the AC56 of my remote partner.

As you can see from the attached pictures the sync process should be working, but the facts are that there seem to be no data copied on my remote partner disk.

Someone already tried this feature ? Someone understand it ?

Thanks,

GH

 

[opheliagrimm]

I have been using this feature for about a year GH

Quite frankly, it is the sole reason I bought the RTN66U router and really surprised it isn't a more popular and discussed feature online.

In my experience, it works more reliably when one of the routers (the "client" in my case) is setup to automatically reboot every night.

This can be automated through the command line. Someone smarter than me put together the instructions which I have copied below for your convenience.

1) Enable JFFS + Format JFFS + Telnet on the Administration -> System page, then reboot.
2) Download the software called Putty (should be easy to find on Google)
3) Using Putty, connect using the Telnet protocol to your router's IP (probably 192.168.1.1) Username and password are the same as for the webui.
4) Type the following, one line at a time:

Code:
cat << EOF > /jffs/scripts/services-start
#!/bin/sh
/usr/sbin/cru a ScheduledReboot "0 6 * * * reboot"
EOF
Set 0 (minutes) and 6 (hour) to the desired reboot time, for a daily reboot. Those arguments are:

"min hour day month week command"

After this you will be back to the prompt. Now run this:

Code:
chmod a+rx /jffs/scripts/services-start
/jffs/scripts/services-start

That will set up the cron job. Every time you reboot the router, the reboot task will be re-established.

 

[QMax]

Don't know if it really works using Asus WebStorage, but I'm really sure that it doesn't work at all with a DropBox account.
No file sync (it stops after few Kb), tons of junk files, duplicated files....

Good idea, but I completely disabled my DropBox access from AiCloud.

 

[opheliagrimm]

Qmax, the router-to-router sync feature does not require the use of dropbox or asus webstorage.

It basically syncs the data on the external hard drive of Router A with the data on external hard drive of Router B (remote location, over the internet)

Sort of like rsync to a remote location.

The beauty of that is you are no longer limited to the storage offered by those third party solutions and also the data is private...it never gets stored on any body else's network.

I use one RTN66u at home and another at the office. My files are synced on an external hard drive attached to each of the Asus routers.

Oddly enough, I just updated my firmware to the latest and it seems to have broken the sync functionality...so maybe that is why the OP is having trouble.

Will continue to test and report back.

 

[opheliagrimm]

Still no dice,

Now when I remove and attempt to recreate the sync the log file just shows:

Nov 19 21:41:46 rc_service: httpd 409:notify_rc restart_cloudsync
Nov 19 21:41:46 Cloudsync client and Webdav_client: daemon is stopped

Will try it with two routers on a LAN and see if it works on the new firmware before taking it over the WAN again.

 

[ychauhan4u]

Is anyone able to make it work?
i liked this feature but it never worked for me.

 

[huotg01]

It works, with probably more features, using Rsync. I have to make the tutorial available on the wiki.

 

[huotg01]

It works, with probably more features, using Rsync. I have to make the tutorial available on the wiki.

The tutorial is available in the wiki at the URL:
https://github.com/RMerl/asuswrt-me...c-through-a-SSH-tunnel-between-2-Asus-routers

There is a thread for questions, comments, recommendations at this place:
http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?p=157040#post157040

GH