[GNC] Configuration dilemma -- How best to share Gnucash between 2 users

John Griessen john at industromatic.com
Tue May 10 16:06:02 EDT 2022


On 5/10/22 11:46, Chris Mitchell wrote:
Keeping the data files on shared network storage ("Windows network
share", Samba, NFS, sshfs, etc) and accessing them directly has the
advantage of real-time file locking:
> I much prefer this setup, because it effectively prevents the
> "accidentally edit both" scenario.

That sounds great for two people in an office.   How would you get the benefit of doing bookkeeping on a laptop and then at a 
desktop machine alternating
back and forth?

I get a flexibility benefit using unison to sync files.  I don't share use of bookkeeping files
with another person, just me with laptop and me with desktop.  So far no troubles for a year.
This method does not expose my bookkeeping to internet server attacks either -- it all stays behind a firewall.

I've not used the lock files very much, usually "opening anyway" since there have been occasional lock ups of x-windows as the 
ubuntu distro I run with has been shifting to Wayland, and sometimes I get to power off running processes and have stale lock 
files to ignore.  And since there is only me, lock files are always wrong if they say locked, since I don't have both laptop and 
desktop running gnucash at once.

I find it worth being careful not to edit two different .gnucash files so I can do some bookkeeping at odd hours with laptop, and 
yet normally use desktop with scanner on my LAN for prcessing paper receipts to images.  There is a side benefit to using a sync 
program methodically:  it's always making a backup of what your are doing by copying any newer files to the other machine.  Unison 
syncs all my data, not just gnucash files.  If somehow unison garbled something, there are 30 older .gnucash files and every 
single .log file saved in a dir called logs to reconstruct lost data entering from.

John Griessen


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