After the update, the Bittorrent Sync daemon no longer works as a root user.

If you are not yet aware of what Bittorent Sync is, then you can read about this technology here . In short, this software pursues the ideology of Your Data Belongs to You. Its functionality is to synchronize data using p2p-technology. The reliability and speed of such distributed storage is proportional to the number of machines in the network.
PPA for Ubuntu you can take here .

No more work as root

Today, the BTSync update arrived, which solved a rather important problem - when used on Linux systems, the daemon worked as root, which created a number of problems with access rights. When trying to run as an individual user, the application behaved incorrectly. Starting from version 1.2.1, BTSync runs by default on behalf of the user btsync, which allows you to more flexibly manage rights.

Real use cases

Despite the closed source code, which is criticized by many users, this software is a very successful alternative for distributed backup and a number of other tasks. Personally, I use BTSync to distribute database backups between branches. Internet access in my case is possible only through 3G, and using p2p synchronization allows proportionally increasing the channel width. At night (no traffic restrictions), branch offices exchange daily copies of databases via VPN.
I also automatically distribute fresh family photos among relatives' PCs, while simultaneously getting backup copies.
')

Beware of the shapers!

To those who want to use this method in their work, I would like to advise you to clarify how the torrent traffic is shaping from your provider. Often it is cut so that it makes this technology useless without an encrypted channel. For example, in Krasnodar FTTB MTS cuts the outgoing channel up to 200-600 kilobytes / s even at the maximum rate.

Update details

    btsync 1.2.0-2 (  …/btsync_1.2.1-1_all.deb) … * Stopping P2P file synchronisation daemon(s)... * Stopping btsync instance 'debconf-default' [ OK ]     btsync …    ureadahead … ureadahead will be reprofiled on next reboot    hicolor-icon-theme …    man-db …   libibus-1.0-5:i386 (1.5.3-6ubuntu2.1) …   btsync (1.2.1-1) …      /etc/init.d/btsync …    «btsync» (UID 122) ...    «btsync» (GID 132) ...    «btsync» (UID 122)   «btsync» ...     «/var/lib/btsync». * Starting P2P file synchronisation daemon(s)... * Autostarting btsync instance 'debconf-default'