View the Project on GitHub pulinagrawal/Obsidian-Sync-Alternative
#free #no-cost
It feels like I have found the holy grail of note taking. Obsidian is an amazing app available for your desktop for note-taking. The only problem is that the syncing functionality between phone and the desktop app is a premium feature. So far, I was relying on GitJournal for syncing my notes. But it breaks the consistency. Don’t get me wrong, GitJournal is one clean android app, but it does break flow. It is also not as simple to setup and also requires providing your git key to the app. Also, I did not have access to all the cool plugins that Obsidian App has created by its wonderful community. I am not sure if I found this solution or part of this solution somewhere or I thought of it on my own. I am trying to document it here for the benefit of anyone using Obsidian. It simply involves using a free app Termux. This is assuming you are using Android. I have not tested this solution on iOS.
I assume you are already using Obsidian if you have reached this page. But if not, you can download and start using Obisdian on your desktop after downloading it from the website here. Also, I am assuming that you have setup syncing your notes to a git repo. Check this out How to sync Obsidian vault for free using Git? if you haven’t already done that. Also, I am assuming that you have the Android app installed, linked here. As it was mentioned, the solution is based on Termux. So, the next step is to install the app Termux on your Android device. I would STRONGLY recommend that you install Termux from F-Droid because it is no longer being maintained on Play Store. The mirrors/repositories are not setup correctly and outdated, so you wouldn’t be able to perform all the steps mentioned below as it is.
Install Termux on your android device.
Run the following commands in Termux to setup git. (It is a little tricky to set this up. It hasn’t been a very deterministic process for me. Hopefully you have better luck than me. The uncertainity might be a result of the fact that I was using Play Store Termux before, first when I wrote these instructions. With F-Droid Termux it worked in first try.
termux-setup-storage
iPad
mount -t ios website /mnt
Allow permission to storage. Type ‘ls’ to make sure that you can see the ‘storage’ folder.
ls
Update linux distribution and install git and openssh. Remember to press ‘Enter’ on to any prompts that show up to keep the default versions of the packages. You need git to clone and pull and push changes to your vault. You need openssh to clone your repo because GitHub removed https cloning. Upon installation of openssh, it will provide the path to your public key. Please make a note of that.
apt update && apt upgrade -y pkg install git -y pkg install openssh -y
iPad
apk add apk-cron
apk add git
apk add openssh
apk add openrc
Print the public key using the following command.
cat /path/to/public/key/ends/like/ssh_host_ed25519.pubCopy the printed text and follow the instructions here to add it to your GitHub.
Next, setup a folder on your android device where you want to store your synced notes from your desktop. ‘cd’ into this folder.
mkdir ~/storage/shared/path/to/folder/
cd ~/storage/shared/path/to/folder/
Now you need to clone your repo. Follow the instructions in this article to setup your personal authentication token for GitHub if you haven’t already done so and clone your repo.
git clone git@github.com:username/repo.git
iPad (if hanging up here or on git pull) First try this
echo https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.14/main >> /etc/apk/repositories
echo https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.14/community >> /etc/apk/repositories
sed -i -e '/http:\/\/apk.ish.app/d' /etc/apk/repositories
Then try this
git config --global pack.thread "1"
I had a little issue setting this up because the ssh-agent was not started and I was getting “Error: Permission denied (publickey)”. I followed the following links -GitHub Permission denied -Oracle start ssh-agent The steps I followed to fix the issue. Mind the removal of ‘.pub’ extension in the second command. We need to use the private key path associated with the public key we added to GitHub.
eval `ssh-agent`
ssh-add /path/to/public/key/ends/like/ssh_host_ed25519
Make sure you are able to push and pull your repo.
cd ~/storage/shared/path/to/folder/repo git pullI had to deal with a fatal error the solution to which was provided after the error. The command I entered was
git config --global --add safe.directory ~/storage/shared/path/to/folder/repoI encountered another issue where I was not able to pull when I restarted Termux. To solve that I added the following lines to my ~/.bashrc.
# ~/.bashrc eval `ssh-agent` ssh-add /path/to/public/key/ends/like/ssh_host_ed25519
Create a sync.sh file with the following lines.
#sync.sh
TPWD=$PWD
cd ~/path/to/your/cloned/vault
git add -A
git commit -m "android backup at $(date)"
git pull
git push
cd $TPWD
Make this file executable by running
chmod 755 /path/to/sync.sh
Add your user name and email to git
git config --global user.email "your@email.com" git config --global user.name "your name"
Verify that you are able to run sync.sh by running the following command from the directory where sync.sh is located.
bash sync.sh
Next, you need to setup a cron job in Termux. For more details on setting up a cron job you can refer to the following article. https://phoenixnap.com/kb/set-up-cron-job-linux.
pkg install cronie termux-services
Restart Termux then run the following.
sv-enable crond
crontab -e
iPad
rc-service crond start && rc-update add crond
crontab -e
Add a line in the cronjob that says
* * * * * bash /path/to/sync.sh
Open the Obsidian app on your android device and select ‘Open folder as vault’ and open the folder that you just cloned.
Please let me know if you liked this solution or you have any questions by leaving a comment in the Issues section of this GitHub repo.