Resilio Agents best practices

Restarting or stopping the Agent service

It's not recommended that you restart or stop the Resilio Agent service.

Restarting an Agent stops and starts the Agent service. It does not reboot the computer.
Any running file scans or data transfer operations will be interrupted and will resume after the Agent restarts.
If an Agent is handling a large Job or many files, a restart of your Agent or computer may cause the synchronization to take longer since it will need to re-initialize and rescan the contents of the Job folder(s).

Warning

If you must restart your system, it is advised that you make sure all synchronization is completed before initiating the restart.

Pausing an Agent

Pausing the Agent stops syncing files until it is resumed.
Any changes made locally during the pause will not be uploaded or synced to other devices, until syncing is resumed.
If files or folders are renamed or modified while the Agent is paused, you may see conflict files created when syncing resumes.
The Agent’s internal database may not merge changes made during the pause, which can lead to duplicate or conflicting files.
To avoid conflicts, it’s best not to make changes to files or folders in the Job folder while the Agent is paused.

Tip

If you need to allow safe renaming or editing during pauses, consider adding the merge_while_paused custom parameter to the Agent Profile.

Adding files and folders to sync folder

When you add files and folders, they are detected by the Agent and queued for synchronization with other Agents participating in the Job.
Agent will upload new files/folders according to the Job sync rules and permissions.
To avoid file conflicts and degraded performance issues, do not shutdown or restart your system or Agent before synchronization is complete.
Adding many files/folders may cause your system to slow down as this process will use more system memory, and increase CPU usage. It may also slow down your internet as it will use up as much bandwidth allowed by Resilio.
Limit folder levels from 8-10 as this can cause performance issues on your system.
Avoid using special characters in naming your files and folders and try to limit the length of file and folder names.

Note

Even if certain characters are allowed by your operating system, it may not be supported by the operating system of another Agent participating in the Job.

Editing and moving your files

Admins

Make sure the archive feature is enabled on all Agents to protect against accidental data loss during renames.
Don’t rename if the Archive is disabled because this can lead to data loss.
Don’t change selective sync mode or permissions without first removing the Agent from the Job.

Users

Allow an Agent to complete synchronization before renaming a large folder.

Warning

Renaming while synchronizing can cause sync issues or cause files to be archived.
Don't move files out of your sync folder.
If you move files out of your synchronization folder, the Resilio Agent will detect they are missing and treat them like deletions. This deletion will be synced to all other Agents in the Job.

Tip: Job Archive

If archiving is enabled, the removed files and folders will be placed in each archive folder on each Agent. You can recover the files or folders from the archive folder. However, if archive is disabled these files or folders will be permanently deleted.

Remote Users

In Hybrid Work or Synchronization Jobs, use the Always keep on this device and Free up space options to manage the contents of your Job folder and conserve storage space.

Note

In Synchronization Jobs, the administrator must enable the Selective Sync feature to make these options available on end users’ workstations.

Adjusting your bandwidth

Adjust your bandwidth if allowed by your admin to control/limit Resilio download or upload speeds:

In the Agent UI, select Settings > User controlled.
Set global Download and Upload limits,

or define a weekly schedule.

Access your synchronization folder

In the Resilio Agent UI, click the name of the Job to open its folder in your default file explorer.