Nokia N900 guide: Sync folders between N900 and PC over wifi

Since I got my N900, one thing that I really wanted to do was to sync the DCIM folder (where the 5-megapixel camera stores its pictures and videos) with my Windows XP PC over wifi. After reading some posts on http://talk.maemo.org/, I knew that it would be possible but couldn't find anything that details the steps required to unleash the power of wireless sync between N900 and PC. In this post, I will explain to you step-by-step how to actually implement it.

N900:

• Obtain root access to the N900 since you are going to be editing files in /etc. Follow instructions here.
• [Optional] Download and install Open SSH. It's much easier to type on a full-sized keyboard than on the N900. Alternatively, you could use VNC the N900.
• Using your favorite editor, edit the file /etc/default/rsync and enable rsync as root user. The line should say

RSYNC_ENABLE=true

• Check that you have /etc/default/rcS. If not, create that file and paste the following content into it:

#

# /etc/default/rcS

#

# Default settings for the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/

#

# For information about these variables see the rcS(5) manual page.

#

# This file belongs to the "initscripts" package.

TMPTIME=0

SULOGIN=no

DELAYLOGIN=no

UTC=no

VERBOSE=no

FSCKFIX=no

• Now, create the file /etc/rsyncd.conf with the following content. This defines which directories you want to sync.

max connections = 3

[camera]

path = /home/user/MyDocs/DCIM

uid = nobody

gid = 65534

• In rsync.conf, I'm allowing only 3 simultaneous rsync connections to my N900. DCIM is the folder that I want the rsync client to synchronize and as a first step, anybody can get the files anonymously. (You may not want that if you are on a public wifi network. But since I'm going to be doing this on my home wireless network only, anonymous access is not a concern for me at this point.)
• Now you are ready to start the rsync server. Type this
  
  /etc/init.d/rsync start
  

Now, go to a Windows machine on the same wireless network...

• Download and install cwrsync.
• Create the destination directory. For example, C:\Documents and Settings\N900 User\My Documents\My Pictures\From N900 Camera
• Create a file called sync_n900.bat anywhere you like. (Feel free to name the batch file something else.)
set RSYNC="C:\Program Files\cwRsync\bin\rsync"
%RSYNC% -az --progress 192.168.0.105::camera "/cygdrive/C/Documents and Settings/N900 User/My Documents/My Pictures/From N900 Camera"

• Substitute 192.168.0.105 with the IP address of your N900.
• Note: Since cwrsync really is rsync-under-cygwin, to specify C: drive, you have to write /cygdrive/C.

• Alternatively, instead of a batch file, you can of course use other GUI wrappers for cwrsync.
• If everything goes well, after running sync_n900.bat, you will see something like this:



• Note that I can consistently get ~600kB/s at home through my 802.11g wireless router.
• That's it!

Troubleshooting

rsync: opendir "/." (in camera) failed: Permission denied (13)

sent 28 bytes received 140 bytes 67.20 bytes/sec

total size is 0 speedup is 0.00

rsync error: some files/attrs were not transferred (see previous errors) (code 2

3) at main.c(1508) [generator=3.0.7]

• Ensure the N900 is NOT in Mass Storage Mode (with USB data cable connected to a computer).