ObjectBox Sync Server is the application enabling ObjectBox Sync. ObjectBox Sync clients connect to Sync Server to receive and send data as required to perform data synchronization. You need to contact ObjectBox to get your personal copy of Sync Server (plain executable or Docker). It comes as a single command-line application sync-server and includes a web based data browser and management interface for administrator users.

Getting started

To start the server, you need a data model JSON file generated by one of the ObjectBox Sync clients.

For the initial setup you must supply the model file (and an authentication option):

$ ./sync-server --model=objectbox-model.json --unsecure-no-authentication
001-13:09:15.6995 [INFO ] [SySvAp] Default configuration file sync-server-config.js not found
001-13:09:15.6996 [INFO ] [SvrMsg] Registering server transport for ws
001-13:09:15.6997 [INFO ] [SySvAp] Database has no schema, loading from objectbox-model.json
001-13:09:15.6998 [INFO ] [SySvAp] Model file objectbox-model.json loaded, it has 2563 bytes
001-13:09:15.6999 [INFO ] [SchVer] Inserted new schema version ID 1
001-13:09:15.6999 [INFO ] [SySvAp] Switching schema version ID to 1
001-13:09:15.7002 [INFO ] [SchVer] Update schema version ID 1: acceptClients := true
001-13:09:15.7012 [INFO ] [SySvAp] Starting the server with a schema version ID 1
001-13:09:15.7018 [INFO ] [SvrUws] UwsServer listening on all interfaces, port 9999 without SSL
001-13:09:15.7018 [WARN ] [SvSync] INSECURE no-authentication mode enabled - every client allowed without any validation
001-13:09:15.7019 [INFO ] [SvSync] Started on port 9999
001-13:09:15.7019 [INFO ] [SySvAp] Starting object browser on http://127.0.0.1:9980
001-13:09:15.7020 [INFO ] [HttpSv] Running in single-store mode with an already opened store
001-13:09:15.7020 [INFO ] [HttpSv] Listening on http://127.0.0.1:9980
001-13:09:15.7020 [INFO ] [HttpSv] User management: enabled
001-13:09:15.7021 [INFO ] [SySvAp] ObjectBox sync server started in 2.63 ms

As of now, the server is already running and accessible:

• ObjectBox Sync on all interfaces, port 9999: Use this information (using a reachable IP or host name) to setup Sync clients

• Admin web UI on localhost, port 9980: Have a look http://127.0.0.1:9980 in your favorite web browser.

Docker Distribution

As an alternative to the plain executable, ObjectBox Sync Server is also available as docker image. It groups together the sync-server binary, the /data folder (for data and configuration) and necessary runtime libraries. This way, you can run sync-server on a platform where it might not be readily available (e.g. Windows). Before you can use the docker image, you can import it with Docker's load command:

$ docker load --input ~/Downloads/sync-server.tar
c7022781a1ed: Loading layer [================================>]  13.55MB/13.55MB
53308e59a2cf: Loading layer [================================>]  1.536kB/1.536kB
Loaded image: objectboxio/sync:21.3.1-server

Once the image is imported, you can run the container. The following example starts Sync Server using the current directory as the data folder and exposes the sync-server on localhost:9999 and admin web UI on http://localhost:9980.

# Note: assumes objectbox-model.json is in the current directory
# Database will be stored in the current directory's "objectbox" subdirectory
​
docker run --rm -it \
    -v $(pwd):/data \
    --publish 127.0.0.1:9999:9999 \
    --publish 127.0.0.1:9980:9980 \
    --user $UID \
    objectboxio/sync:21.3.1-server \
    --model /data/objectbox-model.json \
    --unsecured-no-authentication \
    --browser-bind 0.0.0.0:9980

Using Docker volumes for database files

In a more real-world scenario, you'd probably want to keep data in a separate docker volume. This example shows how to create the volume for the first time and then how to use it to start the Sync Server container (note: the difference to the previous example is in --mount and --user arguments).

# You only need to create the volume once:
docker volume create sync-server-data
​
# If you need to copy the objectbox-model.json file to the volume, you need to map
# the volume first. For example, you can use "busybox" utility image to do that:
docker run --rm -v $(pwd):/src -v sync-server-data:/data busybox \
    cp /src/objectbox-model.json /data/
​
# And start the server, similarly to the example above:
docker run --rm -it \
    --mount source=sync-server-data,target=/data \
    --publish 127.0.0.1:9999:9999 \
    --publish 127.0.0.1:9980:9980 \
    objectboxio/sync:21.3.1-server \
    --model /data/objectbox-model.json \
    --unsecured-no-authentication \
    --browser-bind 0.0.0.0:9980

Docker on Windows

You can also run ObjectBox Sync Server docker distribution on Windows. This guide expects you to use Docker Desktop for WSL 2 - follow these setup steps if you don't have it installed yet.

To follow the best practices to achieve optimal performance, as described by Microsoft and Docker, use a data volume for the database directory instead of binding to a local directory. Follow the guide in the previous section to do that.

Configuration

Let's have a look at sync-server --help:

ObjectBox Sync Server
Usage:
  sync-server [OPTION...]
​
  -d, --db-directory arg        directory where the database is stored
                                (default: objectbox)
      --db-max-size arg         database size limit; use a number with a unit
                                (K/M/G/T), e.g. 256G (default: 104857600K)
  -b, --bind arg                host/IP and port on which the server should
                                listen on (default: ws://0.0.0.0:9999)
  -c, --conf arg                configuration file path (default:
                                sync-server-config.js)
  -m, --model arg               schema model file to load (JSON) (default: )
      --cert arg                certificate file path (default: )
      --browser-bind arg        host/IP and port on which the object-browser
                                should listen on (default:
                                http://127.0.0.1:9980)
      --browser-threads arg     number of the worker threads to use for the
                                object-browser (default: 4)
      --unsecured-no-authentication
                                [UNSECURE] allow connections without
                                authentication (default: false)
      --debug                   enable debug logs (default: false)
  -h, --help                    show help

Alternatively, you can choose to provide the configuration in a sync-server-config.js JSON file:

{
    "dbDirectory": "objectbox",
    "dbMaxSize": "100G",
    "modelFile": "",
    "bind": "ws://0.0.0.0:9999",
    "browserBind": "http://127.0.0.1:9980",
    "browserThreads": 4,
    "certificatePath": "",
    "auth": {
        "sharedSecret": "",
        "google": {
            "clientIds": []
        }
    }
}

• dbDirectory directory where the database is stored

• dbMaxSize database size limit; use a number with a unit, e.g. 256G (default: 100G)

  • K for kibibytes, i.e. 1024 bytes

  • M for mebibytes, i.e. 1024 kibibytes

  • G for gibibytes, i.e. 1024 mebibytes

  • T for tebibytes, i.e. 1024 gibibytes

• modelFile schema (model) file to create the database with or to use for a schema update

• bind Sync server will bind on this schema, host and port combination, should be in the form ws://hostname:port for example ws://127.0.0.1:9000. You can also bind to a specific IP address on the server machine by providing the exact address, as given by ifconfig or ip addr, e.g. ws://192.168.0.125:9999.

• browserBind HTTP server (admin/web UI) will bind on this schema, host and port combination

• browserThreads number of threads the HTTP server uses - a low number is enough as it's for admins only but you may

  need to increase if running in some cloud setups that keep the connections active (e.g. kubernetes)

• certificatePath Server SSL certificate directory; SSL will be enabled if not empty; expects cert.pem and key.pem at certPath

• auth.sharedSecret if not empty, enables the shared secret authentication with the given key

• auth.google.clientIds a list of GoogleAuth client IDs (strings)

You can omit any fields you're not interested in overriding. CLI options have precedence over (i.e. they override) the options in the JSON config file.

Admin web UI

The ObjectBox Sync Server Admin UI runs as part of the sync-server executable and allows you to:

• view the data and download it in JSON format,

• view current schema information and previous schema versions,

• view runtime informat, like version number, database size, network interfaces, ...

• manage Admin UI user credentials

Sync stats

"Sync" main menu item will bring you to a page with numerous charts with server runtime information. This can be valuable in multiple ways, e.g. during development, you can verify your applications connect to the server (show up in "Connects" and "Connected clients") and synchronize data (see "Client applied *"). Also, there are multiple charts showing errors - watch for those when trying to figure out issues with your clients.

Status

In the main menu, you will find "Status" to open a page with some useful information. While the following layout is still not final, it will give you a first impression of what to expect:

The "Debug logging" switch on the status page enables a very detailed logging (to standard output).

Logging

By default only logs with "info" level and above are enabled, which are relatively rare. For example, there's nothing logged about standard interactions with clients. That might be overwhelming with a few hundred clients already. Info logs should never "spam" you, no matter how many clients are connected.

Let's look at a typical log during startup:

001-14:09:07.5792 [INFO ] [SySvAp] Default configuration file sync-server-config.js not found
001-14:09:07.5793 [INFO ] [SvrMsg] Registering server transport for ws
001-14:09:07.5831 [INFO ] [SvrUws] UwsServer listening on all interfaces, port 9999 without SSL
001-14:09:07.5832 [WARN ] [SvSync] INSECURE no-authentication mode enabled - every client allowed without any validation
001-14:09:07.5883 [INFO ] [SvSync] Started on port 9999
001-14:09:07.5884 [INFO ] [SySvAp] Starting object browser on 0.0.0.0:9980
001-14:09:07.5885 [INFO ] [HttpSv] Running in single-store mode with an already opened store
001-14:09:07.5885 [INFO ] [HttpSv] Listening on 0.0.0.0:9980
001-14:09:07.5885 [INFO ] [HttpSv] User management: enabled
001-14:09:07.5890 [INFO ] [SySvAp] ObjectBox sync server started in 10 ms

As you can see, logging is structured into the following columns:

• Thread: the first three digits are the number of the thread that logged the text message

• Time: UTC time using 24 hours format, including 1/10,000 second precision (1/10 milliseconds)

• Level: One of the log levels (listed with increasing severity):

  • DEBUG: extensive logs to help diagnosing a specific behavior

  • INFO: "important" information

  • WARN: something unusual has happened that you might want to check.

  • ERROR: reserved for special error occasions ("something bad happened") that typically require some action. It might be that the machine is running out of resources (RAM, disk space etc) or an unexpected situation was encountered. When in doubt, reach out to the ObjectBox team to clarify what's going on.

• Tag (optional): Most logs include a tag identifying the internal component

• Message: the actual log text

After startup, you typically won't see anymore logs by default. In contrast to "info" and above, "debug" level logs gives you extensive information including client connects and message interactions with clients.

To give you a feel what debug logs are like have a look at the following example. It shows a new client connecting, logging in and sending data:

014-15:25:18.3188 [DEBUG] [SvrUws] (#1) Connection from 127.0.0.1:50488
014-15:25:18.3194 [DEBUG] [SvSync] (#1) Got msg of type LOGIN and length 28
014-15:25:18.3195 [DEBUG] [W-Pool] "SrvRead" Submitted new job successfully
002-15:25:18.3195 [DEBUG] [SvLgIn] (D10F) Authenticator 0 welcomes a new client
002-15:25:18.3195 [DEBUG] [W-Pool] "SrvRead" W#1 finished job in 0.06 ms
014-15:25:18.3195 [DEBUG] [SvrUws] Popped 1 messages to send
014-15:25:18.3207 [DEBUG] [SvSync] (D10F) Got msg of type APPLY_TX and length 140
014-15:25:18.3207 [DEBUG] [W-Pool] "SrvWrite" Submitted new job successfully
012-15:25:18.3215 [DEBUG] [TxLogA] Applied 4 commands
012-15:25:18.3277 [DEBUG] TX #5492 committed
009-15:25:18.3277 [DEBUG] [SvLogM] Applied TX log from D10FDB04A0F0: base=5460B3A444C2CD5377EAE8FBFFAC6B12, old=9A37C8BCA4232AA2D6E502AE2D069C15, new=4B2D216711C60497088B5FB10816CC98
009-15:25:18.3277 [DEBUG] [SvApTx] (D10F) Sending ACK_TX #1: 5460B3A4
009-15:25:18.3277 [DEBUG] [W-Pool] "SrvWrite" W#1 finished job in 7.01 ms
013-15:25:18.3278 [DEBUG] [SvDPsh] Have 116 bytes of data (0 clients).
014-15:25:18.3278 [DEBUG] [SvrUws] Popped 1 messages to send

Setting the Authentication method

To start the server, you need to specify an authentication method for clients. Otherwise the server won't start:

$ ./sync-server --model=objectbox-model.json
...
001-13:05:07.3526 [ERROR] [SySvAp] Runtime error: Authenticator must be set before starting
001-13:05:07.4524 [INFO ] [SvSync] Stopped (port 0)
Authenticator must be set before starting

Updating the data model

The model JSON is used to initialize the database schema and can also be used later to switch the schema to a newer version, by starting the server with an updated model file. Alternatively, the schema version can be changed through the web UI.

Feedback

While we hope that ObjectBox Sync is already useful for your use case, we're also aware that some features are missing. We're looking forward to your feedback to prioritize the most requested features.

Please let the ObjectBox team know if you run into issues; we're happy to help. We are aware of rough edges still exist and might be able to help you one way or the other.