I don’t trust any servers with my note data and prefer to have them offline. However, Syncthing cannot sync with iOS devices because of that stupid sandboxing–or rather, because there’s no way to make a local folder sync on an iOS/iPadOS device (if you know how to do this I’d highly appreciate for your advice!).
Therefore, I’d like to ask for a feature in Sync that will allow for private synchronisation between Obsidian devices. It shouldn’t be too hard, you just point to the IP of the server and it works thereon.
There isn’t much of an issue with trust because the notes are end-to-end encrypted. That is, the notes are stored on server encrypted and you have the key.
However, this FR may have other use cases, especially for businesses. In that case, even the pricing model might be different.
Let’s keep the FR open and see where it goes.
Yes, the issue is a somewhat attenuated with P2P encryption, but I still don’t trust any servers with having my notes even when encrypted. I’d rather have them on my device only.
To be fair & clear, this is not distrust placed in Obsidian creators, but in anyone else that might possibly have an access to the encrypted note data–illegally or otherwise.
Maybe I should open a new FR for a new option to delete server data after sync is done?
Especially for folks that run IOS, this is really the only feasible path for syncing, and I and several other folks at my workplace would love a self-hosted option. E2EE claims aren’t enough, in certain industries the servers need to be certified to a certain level to host data, even if it is encrypted, so having a self-hosted paid version would be valuable.
Is there a way to increase the position of self-hosted sync on the roadmap? Do users with commercial licenses have some voting rights on road map prioritization?
I’m using CloudRon for home/small-office business apps and there are not that many nice Notion open source alternatives with self-hosted service available, and Obsidian is clearly the one (I’m a newbie who fall in love and migrating to Notion everything, after a long history of trials and errors) - having self-hosted app for a small / personal use that I could easily spin off on my CloudRon would be an absolute killer for me, as I would be able to move it’s use outside of Mac <-> iOS to my Linux and hopefully Web platforms.
Having my brain accessible from anywhere is like a dream.
Obsidian sync currently limits the maximum file size for sync and total storage. I often document certain processes with screen captures and mp4 videos, which would exceed the limits of Obsidian sync.
Proposed solution
Allow to set an on-premise/private cloud location of their choice as their storage location. This would reduce the overall load from your back end to. An other possibility would be to split up the plain .md files and sync them over the existing back end and allow “media/big file/lfs” sync with a second method. (SSH, S3 URL, …). The split approach would also allow to implement large file sync on request, since mobile devices usually do not have that much storage available offline.
An other approach would be, to fully support OneDrive or similar on all platforms, which support the concept of online and offline file storage.
I would personally even do not care, when this would be a paid feature.
Current workaround (optional)
Syncing with other methods like OneDrive, Dropbox, etc. (Currently not always working seamless).
Self Hosting would surely be a great way to alleviate Obsidian-side server load and also allow for complete freedom on the users side.
+5 for this FR as I know quite a few active users who are not on this forum …
I am not familiar with that plugin. There are several features that were implemented as third party plugins and then reimplemented in core. So let’s keep this open.
I have a compromise solution that would require minimal work on your end.
The first step would be publishing the current Sync API definition, the bare minimum that would allow one to implement their own - I’d argue that a standard OpenAPI schema would be more than enough (and I want to presume that you use OpenAPI internally, since it’s an awesome tool).
Then, the only thing needed to be done is to add an option for a custom endpoint when you set Sync up. Maybe even throw in a “you’re connecting to an untrusted server, please make sure your data is safe, we’re not responsible if your cat turns your microwave into a nuclear bomb, etc.” disclaimer for good measure.
This way, people who really want to host their own Sync server can write their own implementation of it, but most will still use the officially recommended service.
I would also appreciate a native solution for syncing with a server of choice via Webdav.
Specially for iOS.
Also due to the Data Protection Law in germany (BDSG) we are not allowed to store personal information of other people on servers that are not fulfilling the requirements of the DSGV-regulation of the BDSG. Meaning für businesses it would be illegal to manage confidential data with Obsidian Sync or Sync via iCloud if they don’t fulfill the DSGV.
iCloud does as far as I know not fulfill it, servers where I know that they fulfill it are hosted in germany. Dropbox fulfills it, maybe by hosting on servers located in germany.
So by having the possibility to sync to a self chosen server, also this could be solved.
Personally I would be more interested in a solution that involved using a self configured solution like S3 or an EFS equivalent.
My use case is an obsidian service deployed in kubernetes (EKS) that I want to be accessible from mobile devices & a web-browser, and can be simultaneously accessed/edited by multiple users.
I am imagining that this can be accomplished by implementing an S3 compatible storage API (that way something like minio could be used too) or still using the desktop like file storage but assuming/requiring that a storage volume like EFS will be used, and making sure that simultaneous access from separate processes can occur. Perhaps both?