btsync

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Table of Contents

• Description
• Usage
• Methods
• How it works
• Security issues
• TODO
• Notes
• Why this script
• Author
• License

Description

Bash-binding for btsync API. btsync (aka Bittorrent Sync) can be found here or there.

Actually this is a wrapper of your browser iteractions. It isn't the official btsync API.

The script supports both btsync 1.3 and btsync 1.4.

Please make sure you read the section Why this cript for details.

Usage

See many examples in examples/ directory.

Methods

I only write stuff that I need. You are welcome to contribute to this project!

• license/update: accept btsync license. This is a must before you create/update other settings :)
• token/get: return a valid token for curl-ing
• cookie/get: return a valid cookie for curl-ing
• curl/header/get: return both cookie and token for your own test
• folder/get: return all shared folders you see in web console, or return information for a single folder. Argument: As in folder/host/get. In case both key/dir are missing, a list of all shared folder is returned.
• folder/setting/get: return the default folder or setting of a folder. Argument: As in folder/get.
• os/type/get: return the type of host's operating system
• version/get: return the version number of btsync
• setting/get: return general settings
• speed/get: return the current download/upload speed
• key/get: return (generate) a valid key pair. Argument:
  • encrypt: Specify if you want to have encrypt support. Default: 0.
  • key: (Optional) Specify the RW or ERW key from that the RO or ERO key is generated. If key is not specified, new random key pair will be generated.
  • master: Generate only the master key. This will be very fast. Default: 0.
• os/dir/create: create a directory on remote system (dangerous!). Argument:
  • dir: A path to directory on the remote server. The dir must be started by a slash (/). Please note that btsync normally accepts arbitary path name, but our script doesn't accept that.
• folder/create: create new share folder. Arguments:
  • encrypt: Create a shared folder with encryption support. Default: 0.
  • dir: As mentioned in os/dir/create
  • key: (Optional) A secret key (RW, RO, ERO, ...). If not specified, a random keypair of type RW will be created.
• folder/host/get: return list of known hosts of a shared folder. Arguments:
  • dir: A remote directory path.
  • key: A secret key of the shared folder, of any type. You must specify at least dir or key. If both of them are specified, dir will take precedence. (This is because the path is always unique, while two different shared folder may have a same key.)
• key/onetime/get: return a on-time key for a shared folder. Arguments: As in folder/host/get.
• folder/setting/update: update settings for a shared folder. Arguments:
  • relay: use relay or not. Default: 0
  • tracker: user tracker or not. Default: 0
  • lan: search in local net or not. Default: 1
  • dht: search in DHT network or not. Default: 0
  • trash: save deleted files to trash or not. Default: 1
  • host: use list of predefined hosts, or not. Default: 1
  • dir/key: as in folder/host/get.
• folder/host/create: add a new host to list of known hosts. Arguments:
  • host: the host name or IP address, or a hostname/IP followed by a port number, for example, foobar:1234.
  • port: the port number. This argument is ignored if host already contains a port number.
  • dir/key: As in folder/host/get
• folder/host/delete: delete some host from the list of know hosts. Arguments: As in folder/host/create. Please note that btsync does not check for duplication. This method will delete all entries that match user's criteria.
• folder/delete: Delete a shared folder. Arguments: As in folder/get.
• raw/get: To execute an arbitrary method.

More method? Okay, stay tuned!.

How it works

The normal steps of a browser session:

• Basic authentication
• Generate/Save session's cookie to browser
• Fetch a valid token from gui/token.html
• Use the cookie / token pair for any future JSON data fetch

The data transferred between the browser and a btsync daemon are in JSON format, and they are almost identical to the official btsync API.

The most tricky part is to generate an encryption secret keypair:

1. Generate a random string foo, which is actually a master RW key;
2. Invoke folder/create to create a shared folder (foo) on the server;
3. Invoke folder/get to get information of the foo shared folder;
4. Invoke folder/delete to delete the shared folder.

The necessary data can be found on the 3rd step. After the 4th step, the temporary folder will be deleted; however, the temporary directory still remains on the remote server. For btsync 1.3, it is under /tmp/cnystb/. For btsync 1.4, it will be under .cnystb/ directory inside the default folder. Further technical details can be read from the implementation of __key_push_and_pull method.

Security issues

When using key/get, please note that there may be a case when folder/create is invoked to create a temporary shared folder. Because the default settings of btsync is to allow to use remote tracker and relay servers, newly created shared folder will trigger btsync to send traffic to its home.

This is true for any newly created shared folder, though.

Missing methods

Selective download must be very cool feature. Now you can only find them from the official btsync API.

Getting a list of files from a shared folder is another missing thing.

Why this script

btsync officialy provides their API, but you need to ask them for an API key. That's free; you just need to wait some hours to get the key.

Though the API key comes from btsync team, your API server is yours: When you start new btsync daemon, the API is already there, but you just can't use it because you don't have the unlock key. Weird.

I don't believe in btsync way:) I think btsync should provide a way so its users can generate as many API keys as they want. If I have to use the official API key, that should be the case when API end-point is on btsync network.

That's why I write this script. I can write it in Ruby, Python; however bash and Perl are enough for a sysadmin: I use bash to glue things, and use Perl to read some JSON data -- which is unreadable from bash brain.

TODO

Support the official btsync API:)

Notes

• btsync team seems to remove/disable public access to my former topic. The topic is still available here too https://web.archive.org/web/20150204105418/http://forum.bittorrent.com/topic/31198-btsync-api-for-bash-without-api-key
• btsync-14 can't handle symbolic link. If the default folder is /home/btsync which is a symbolic link to /btsync, the you can't create new folder/directory /home/btsync/foobar/. Maybe btsync team was trying to fix an arbitrary folder creating in the previous version (1.3). See tests/* for more details.

License

This work is released under a MIT license.

Author

Anh K. Huynh