Cloudant, CouchDB .. Synology NAS?

[Cornelius Fischer]

Hi Brendan

I just received an email from Cloudant that they will retired the shared plans (whatever this means.. and I even don’t now if I have a shared plan on Cloudant). This reminded me to a question I have in mind since quite a while..

I am using TapForms to organise my business (made a CRM). My TapForms DB need to be accessed on 5 different Macs, running with 3 different iCloud Accounts from Apple. Now, what is the best way to get my database in sync on the 5 systems..

Right now I’m using Cloudant with Autosync and everything works fine.
With the reminder from Cloudant it seems that I need to migrate to this new IBM Cloud service. But I also saw this CouchDB service.. and I also run a Synology NAS at my office where all the 5 computers have access.

Therefore, is there a smarter way to get the systems sync (as easy a possible) then IBM Cloud?
Do you now a way to get the sync done with my Synology NAS server?

Thanks for your help and best regards from Switzerland
Cornelius

[David Butenhof]

I was just coming on to post about that, too.

From what I can see, “Cloudant” as a protocol or service name continues to exist, but as part of ibm.com/cloud, while the separate cloudant.com servers are going away.

The FAQ claims there’s a permanent free tier, up to 256Mb; although the current cloudant allows you to skip a credit card as long as you’re within the free usage, the FAQ says the new free tier definitely doesn’t require a credit card.

The first question for Brandon would be whether the current Cloudant configuration will work if we just change the server from https://<name&gt;.cloudant.com to https://ibm.com/cloud/cloudant (I’m not sure how the username fits in at this point).

[Brendan]

Hey guys,

I just learned about this migration today too. I’m not an IBM partner or anything like that. Just a user like you guys.

I’ve successfully synced small documents so far with their new system. I seem to remember having troubles with a larger document before when I tried it.

If you read the instructions in the online user manual, it will help you to setup an account and to use the login information in Tap Forms:

https://www.tapforms.com/help-mac/5/en/topic/ibm-cloudant-sync

I’m still working on figuring out how to do the migration from Cloudant to IBM Cloud Cloudant.

You can also setup your own Apache CouchDB server. I have instructions on how to do that here:

https://www.tapforms.com/help-mac/5/en/topic/couchdb-sync

It’s like having your own Cloudant service, but running on your own server.

I don’t think it will work on the Synology NAS. I have one too and I didn’t see a CouchDB 2.0 service available in the list of packages you can download and install. It would be good if you could.

You could use an old Mac mini for the job or any Mac on the network actually.

Thanks,

Brendan

[Brendan]

Cornelius,

As far as merging all of the data from all of your Macs together, it really all depends on what you’ve got going on there right now.

Do you have multiple documents that you just want everyone to have? Or have you been working on the same documents, but just with different data on each island of Macs?

If you just have different documents, then you can just send those documents around to all of the other Macs and then sync them to the same cloud account (whether it be iCloud, Apache CouchDB or IBM Cloud).

[Cornelius Fischer]

Hi Brendan

I have one database which need to be shared an multiple clients with different iCloud accounts and it must be possible to work simultaneously on that database.

With Cloudant this was possible. Therefore I was just wondering if there is an alternative or if I might need to migrate to this new IBM Cloud (Bluemix..).

Do you now if Apache CloudDB would be possible with a Synology NAS Server?

[Brendan]

I briefly looked to see if Apache CouchDB could be installed on a Synology NAS and I did see something about that, but it was quite old on GitHub and hadn’t been updated in years. So I’m not sure if it’s still valid. I haven’t done extensive research on it yet.

Well you certainly won’t be able to use iCloud syncing.

What about just running Apache CouchDB on one of your Macs and have everyone connect to that? Just make sure you don’t turn it off. Syncing can be done only within the office then, unless you open a hole in your firewall to let connections to that Mac on a specific port number be allowed.

[Cornelius Fischer]

I just did a transfer of my DB to the new IBM Bluemix Cloudant and this works now.. Just had in the beginning issues with the data upload due to the limitation of 10 requests per second for the free lite version.

The Standart-Plan would have been costs of about 75$ p. month.

I definitely will look into the Synology solution next year when I have a bit more time.
A local Mac will not work, as I have some devices which are location outside of my office and don’t have access. With Synology it would just be easier to sync from other sides than from a Mac running Apache.

Well let’s see what I can find out next year about the Synology option. For the moment it works with Bluemix Cloudant and their free lite plan.

Thanks for your help!

[Brendan]

It would be cool to be able to run CouchDB on the Synology NAS. I’m sure it’s possible, but a package would have to be created for it.

[wongalain]

Dear Brendan,
I tried to follow your instructions to install couchdb on my mac server.
But, when I try to set up SSL connection, everything is smooth, until when I tried to add the options “Daemons” “httpsd” “{chttpd, start_link, [https]}”, the Web interface cannot add this options with a warning “Option add failed: Config section backlisted for modification over HTTP API.:

Can you help me?
Thanx

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[Brendan]

That seems to be a new thing in CouchDB 2.1.1. It never used to be like that.

Now you have to edit the local.ini file to add those settings.

The problem is, I can’t seem to find the one being edited via the admin console. It’s supposed to be in ~/Library/Application Support/CouchDB2/etc but for me it’s not.

Can you check that location to see if there’s one there for your setup?

Thanks,

Brendan

[wongalain]

Dear Brendan,

I just can’t locate the file even with finder after setting to show all hidden files.

Any suggestions?

Thanx

[Brendan]

Me neither. I’ve posted on a CouchDB GitHub issue about this.

I did a complete scan of my hard drive and I also can’t find it, yet when I use the configuration screen in the Fauxton admin page, it shows the changes I’ve made. There is a copy of the local.ini file here:

/Applications/Apache\ CouchDB.app/Contents/Resources/couchdbx-core/etc/local.ini

Perhaps if you put a copy of it inside:

~/Library/Application Support/CouchDB2/etc/couchdb

Then edit that file instead.

Once I figure it out I’ll update the documentation. It did used to work though as I did it before when I wrote those instructions.

Thanks,

Brendan

[wongalain]

Dear Brendan,

Thank you for your swift reply
I tried to edit the local.ini folder in the first location, but it didn’t work
I then tried to edit the local.ini file & then copy to the ~/Library/Application Support/CouchDB2/etc/couchdb directory, it didn’t work too.

No luck

[Brendan]

Ya, I’m not really sure what’s going on there right now. It worked in CouchDB 2.0, but it seems to perhaps be broken in CouchDB 2.1.1. But perhaps there’s just a different way of configuring it now.

If you find out anything, please let me know.

[Brendan]

So I found out the file is here:

~/Library/Preferences/couchdb2-local.ini

So you should be able to edit the settings there and input the last setting that wouldn’t save before.

[daemons]
httpsd = {chttpd, start_link, [https]}

What worked for me after that was to quit and re-launch Apache CouchDB and then sign-in with Tap Forms using the following address: https://voyager.local:6984

[Cornelius Fischer]

Hi Brendan

I’m now using the IBM Bluemix Cloudant with autosync.
When I run Tapforms on 3 Macs with the same account, the sync does not happen automatically.
I even have to quite and reopen tapforms several times to sync data completely.

Could this be issued by the lite plan from IBM Cloudant?
They write:
1 GB of data storage
Provisioned throughput capacity:
20 Lookups/sec
10 Writes/sec
5 Queries/sec

Could the limited lookups/writes/queries issue autosync problems?

[Brendan]

That could possibly be a problem. But generally it shows a “too many requests” error message when you hit that wall.

In the next update I’ve added a bit of code to Couchbase Lite to handle the 429 “too many requests” error that comes back and that’ll cause Couchbase Lite to back off for a few moments and try the sync again.

The biggest problem with the new IBM Cloud system is the file attachment size issue.

[t fullerton]

Im here for same reasons. The change to IBM cloudant was painful and broke my database. I’ve never been able to get it running after and the thought of recreating it just pushed it further down on the list of things to do.

Now with the migration, I just couldn’t see the reason to pay monthly when I have a sinology in house. Now im here seeking a solution with Synology NAS.

Has anyone come up with a solution to sync to their own Synology NAS? With so many options for development, I didn’t see the Apache CouchDB option. Is there any other way we might connect to our own NAS? It would be such a powerful feature.

[Brendan]

There was a thread about setting up Synology with CouchDB here:

Sync via Synology NAS

I haven’t done it myself though.

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