A quick and ergonomic way to setup an up-to-date instance of Anki Sync Server, without the hassle.

Based on tsudoko's ankisyncd

Learn more about what "tested" means here.

• 2020-02-06:

  AnkiDesktop 2.1.19, AnkiDroid 2.9.1 is tested and works with ankisyncd 2.1.0 with commit 2bfccf7f applied on the top of that.

• 2019-07-08:

  tsudoko/anki-sync-server#41

If you've managed put your Anki devices on the same (typically LAN) network, you may use one of your computers to host the synchronization server with this command:

export ANKI_SYNC_DATA_DIR=~/anki-sync-server-docker-data

mkdir -p "$ANKI_SYNC_DATA_DIR"
docker run -it \
   --mount type=bind,source="$ANKI_SYNC_DATA_DIR",target=/app/data \
   -p 27701:27701 \
   --name anki-container \
   --rm \
   kuklinistvan/anki-sync-server:latest

You can interrupt this instance anytime by hitting Ctrl+C. You can restart the server with the same command. Its data is going to be preserved in $ANKI_SYNC_DATA_DIR.

Also, be warned that if you don't use any additional proxies, your connection will be unencrypted! That means if you use Anki to memorize your passwords they will be leaked :)

See below how you can point your desktop application to the server you've just created.

Docker will take care of starting the service on boot so you don't have to worry about that. You can setup the server with these commands:

export DOCKER_USER=root
export ANKI_SYNC_DATA_DIR=/etc/anki-sync-server
export HOST_PORT=27701

mkdir -p "$ANKI_SYNC_DATA_DIR"
chown "$DOCKER_USER" "$ANKI_SYNC_DATA_DIR"
chmod 700 "$ANKI_SYNC_DATA_DIR"

docker run -itd \
   --mount type=bind,source="$ANKI_SYNC_DATA_DIR",target=/app/data \
   -p "$HOST_PORT":27701 \
   --name anki-container \
   --restart always \
   kuklinistvan/anki-sync-server:latest

or using docker-compose:

version: "3"

services:
    anki-sync-server:
        image: kuklinistvan/anki-sync-server:latest
        restart: always
        ports:
        - "27701:27701"
        volumes:
        - ./data:/app/data

Here is an example:

<VirtualHost *:443>
    ServerName anki.my.fancy.server.net

    <Location /sync>
        ProxyPass http://127.0.0.1:27701/sync
        ProxyPassReverse http://127.0.0.1:27701/sync
    </Location>
    <Location /msync>
        ProxyPass http://127.0.0.1:27701/msync
        ProxyPassReverse http://127.0.0.1:27701/msync
    </Location>

    UseCanonicalName off
    SSLEngine on
    SSLProtocol +TLSv1.2
    SSLCertificateFile /path/to/the/cert/fullchain.pem
    SSLCertificateKeyFile /path/to/the/key/privkey.pem
    ProxyRequests off
    ProxyPreserveHost on
</VirtualHost>

Of course, nginx can work out too, but I haven't tried it yet.

Attention: of course, you should change the port if you've put anki-sync-server to a non-standard one.

For this you need to access your container instance in order to use the server's ctl:

# docker exec -it anki-container /bin/sh
/app/anki-sync-server # ./ankisyncctl.py --help
usage: ./ankisyncctl.py <command> [<args>]

Commands:
  adduser <username> - add a new user
  deluser <username> - delete a user
  lsuser             - list users
  passwd <username>  - change password of a user
/app/anki-sync-server # ./ankisyncctl.py adduser kuklinistvan
Enter password for kuklinistvan:
/app/anki-sync-server #

Done!

1. Launch Anki
2. Go to Tools > Add-ons
3. Click Get Add-ons...
4. Reference the SyncRedirector plugin with the code 2124817646
5. If you use docker-anki-sync-server on an external server or custom port:
   1. Select SyncRedirector and click Config
   2. Configure your sync urls
6. Restart Anki - optionally check your console output.

For those who have been using this solution and had to deal with "proxy url confusion", note that this plugin hides the strange behaviour of /msync and /sync urls, thus you can specify the same two urls on the desktop client and on your Android device.

Plugin site: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/2124817646

Open the app, then slide off the menu from the left side. Go Settings > Advanced > Custom sync server and specify the same two urls you've specified on the desktop client.

I highly encourage you contacting me if you feel it is "broken again" - it frustrates me too and I'd like to take the effort to fix the bugs on my side.

Even if it is not a bug but rather something to be clarified, I'm happy to answer questions (if I can), so if you have one, just submit an issue.