WD MyPassport Wireless with BitTorrent Sync

SD-card backups in the field as well as automatic upload to your NAS whenever you have an internet connection? Yes it can be done with Western Digital MyPassport Wireless and BitTorrent Sync!

In the past I have always uploaded the footage from my GoPro and compact camera via my laptop in the hotel rooms (or where ever I can find an internet connection). I wanted a more streamlined process and an easy way to empty an SD-card in the field. The MyPassport Wireless takes care of the first problem out of the box. With a built in SD-card reader you can move all content on an SD-card to the built in hard drive. Just set it up to do an automatic copy as soon as an SD-card is present in the reader and it will dump everything to disc.

I also wanted to make an “of site” backup whenever possible. I have been setting up a geo-location backup built on BitTorrent Sync so I already have those servers in place. Since the MyPassport Wireless is ARM based, like a Raspberry Pi, it’s pretty straight forward to setup BtSync on this device. It also has built in support for accessing wifi hotspots and connect to the Internet. This can be done via the mobile app. So this guide will give you the following functionality:

• Dump SD-cards to a hard drive just by carrying the small WD MyPassport Wireless
• When ever it’s conected to the Internet it will start to sync all the new data to your BitTorrent Sync servers.

I’m not sure what the WD warranty would say about this so you do this on your own risk. There is no package manager installed on the MyPassport Wireless so it all have to be done manually. I’m making no claims that this is the best way to do it but I have been testing it out for a while now and it works great so far.

Setup an internet connection

After connecting to the MyPassport Wireless wifi hotspot you can access the UI, usually on https://192.168.60.1. In the web UI, under Wifi, you can setup a connection to another wifi. This will allow the Passport to access the internet as well as share that internet connection with all connected clients. To be able to install, configure and test BitTorrent Sync we need an internet connection. It does, unfortunately, only support 2.4Ghz networks but that will be good enough for this implementation. In the example below my Passport has a wifi named “PLUTO” and is connected to a wifi, with internet access, named “quicktest“.

Enable SSH

We also need SSH access to the box. In the web UI under Admin you can enable SSH.

SSH into the box (default root/welc0me). You can change this but I went with the option to leave it as is and just disable the SSH access when done. When you first login you will have a # shell. Run bash -l to get the regular bash shell. The -l switch will make bash behave as if it was the shell invoked as login shell.

Install Bittorrent Sync

The space for installed apps and configurations are limited. In my first run of this I made an install on the built in storage and it worked fine but it was cutting it to close to running out of space. So when I did a new install I created a folder in the /DataVolume. A word of caution here is that the folder will be accessible over the Public share on the MyPassport Wireless and you have to be careful not to remove it or change any files. So we create a folder and move into it:

[bash]mkdir /DataVolume/btsync
cd /DataVolume/btsync[/bash]

Then we need to download the latest ARM binary from getsync.com. Under the link View other platforms you will find a link for ARM. I usually just right click in Chrome and use the inspect option to get the URL for the binary. In this case: http://download-cdn.getsync.com/stable/linux-arm/BitTorrent-Sync_arm.tar.gz

So we download and unpack BitTorrent sync and then remove the packed file.

[bash]wget http://download-cdn.getsync.com/stable/linux-arm/BitTorrent-Sync_arm.tar.gz
tar -zxvf BitTorrent-Sync_arm.tar.gz
rm BitTorrent-Sync_arm.tar.gz[/bash]

Then we can give it a test run:

[bash]# ./btsync –webui.listen 0.0.0.0:8888
By using this application, you agree to our Privacy Policy, Terms of Use and End User License Agreement.
https://www.getsync.com/legal/privacy
https://www.getsync.com/legal/terms-of-use
https://www.getsync.com/legal/eula

Webui is listening on 0.0.0.0:8888
BitTorrent Sync forked to background. pid = 28602[/bash]

Now you can try browsing to the BitTorrent webui: https://{name or ip of the WD}:8888

As long as you see that working you know it’s all good and we can start the configuration. First we need to kill the process, just run:

[bash]killall btsync[/bash]

Create config file

We need to dump out a config file that we can run the instance from and make sure that all configuration changes we do in the UI sticks. There is a built in command in BitTorrent Sync for creating an example config file.

[bash]/DataVolume/btsync/btsync –dump-sample-config > /DataVolume/btsync/btsync.conf[/bash]

If you know how to configure BitTorrent Sync you can use nano to change settings in the file. If you ever need to edit this manually make sure to kill the btsync daemon first.

Setup daemon auto start

We also need to make sure that the system will autostart when the MyPassport Wireless is turned on. To be able to do that we first need to create an init.d script.

[bash]nano /etc/init.d/btsync[/bash]

Below is a very simple init.d script. It can be done with more advanced features but this has worked just fine so far for me.

[bash]#! /bin/sh
# /etc/init.d/btsync
#

# Carry out specific functions when asked to by the system
case "$1" in
start)
/DataVolume/btsync/btsync –config /DataVolume/btsync/btsync.conf

;;
stop)
killall btsync
;;
*)
echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/btsync {start|stop}"
exit 1
;;
esac

exit 0[/bash]

We make the script executable and set the correct permissions on it.

[bash]chmod 755 /etc/init.d/btsync
chown root:root /etc/init.d/btsync[/bash]

Then we need to use this script to start and stop the btsync daemon whenever the MyPassport Wireless is turned on or off.

[bash]nano /etc/inittab[/bash]

Find the line below:

[bash]# now run any rc scripts
::sysinit:/etc/init.d/rcS[/bash]

Just below it we add the line below to make btsync start when the MyPassport Wireless is turned on.

[bash]::sysinit:/etc/init.d/btsync start[/bash]

Then we find the line below:

[bash]# Stuff to do before rebooting[/bash]

There we add the line below to shutdown the btsync daemon when we turn the MyPassport Wireless off.

[bash]null::shutdown:/etc/init.d/btsync stop[/bash]

Now just save and exit this file and issue a restart command to see that it all works.

Additional config

Now you can access the webui and change the settings.

Change the default folder to /DataVolume so you don’t accidentally fill up the file system with stuff. Then you can go ahead and share any folders you like. In my case /DataVolume/SD Card Imports, I then copy the read only code and apply it to my Bittorent Sync server at home. Whenever I connect the the MyPassport Wireless to the internet it will start syncing your files to your other server.

Tips & Trix

To make sure you get a connection you should tick the Use relay server when required option in the folder options. This will make sure you get a connection even if both your servers are connected to the internet behind NAT devices. I prefer to have a DynDNS name setup for my home server and add that as a Predefined host to make sure a have a direct connection. The relay server will give you a connection but it will bot be “peer-to-peer” and it will reduce the speed.

Please share and let me know in the comments below what you think!