Setting Up a Two-Way File Sync

This article has been archived. Please see Coder Docs for the updated version.

Introduction

Occasionally, it makes sense to use local and remote development tools simultaneously. Consider setting up a two-way file sync to ensure your project is in the same state, no matter where you run an operation. If you don't need to sync changes back from your Environment to the local machine, consider our one-way sync instead.

Install Prerequisites 

We're going to use Mutagen over SSH to establish the sync.

1. Install mutagen
2. Install coder-cli

Configure SSH

Login to Coder Enterprise and configure your local SSH client.

$ coder login https://coder.yourcompany.com
2020-10-20 11:16:29 SUCCESS Logged in.
$ coder config-ssh
An auto-generated ssh config was written to "/Users/ammar/.ssh/config"
Your private ssh key was written to "/Users/ammar/.ssh/coder_enterprise"
You should now be able to ssh into your environment
For example, try running

	$ ssh coder.ammar

Create the sync

Note: The folder must exist on the remote server before beginning.

Identify your project directory and Environment name, then create the sync session.

$ cd ~/my-project
$ coder envs ls
Name     ImageTag    CPUCores    MemoryGB    DiskGB    GPUs    Updating    Status    
ammar    latest      4           4           30        0       false       ON        
test     latest      1           1           10        0       false       OFF    
$ mutagen sync create . coder.env-name:~/project
Created session sync_dLg9zfqynqVa9aj2V36Fr4OCMz1AHzTKzNGFYYkqfAI

Confirm it's working

Run mutagen sync monitor to check if the sync is working.

At this point, your project files should synchronize on any change.

Syncing all Projects

Mutagen performs quite well with many files and folders. We recommend settings up a sync between your projects directory and your Environment so you don't have to think about managing many sessions.

Pausing/Terminating Your Session

You can pause your sync with mutagen sync pause or you can stop and delete the session using mutagen sync terminate.

Further Reading

• Mutagen – Getting Started