This is meant to restart synching on Debian-like systems. Note that the DAEMON_USER is set to bob in the file and should be set appropriately to the user that syncthing should run under. Given the nature of syncthing, the PID file is created under the user directory (at the current version, at /home/bob/.config/syncthing/syncthing.pid).

syncthing

#! /bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          syncthing
# Required-Start:    $local_fs $remote_fs $network $syslog $named $openvpn
# Required-Stop:
# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:	     0 1 6
# Short-Description: Start syncthing.
# Description:       Starts the syncthing daemon.
### END INIT INFO
 
###########################################################################
##  Copyright (C) Wizardry and Steamworks 2013 - License: GNU GPLv3      ##
##  Please see: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html for legal details,  ##
##  rights of fair usage, the disclaimer and warranty conditions.        ##
###########################################################################
 
PATH=/sbin:/usr/bin
DAEMON=/usr/bin/syncthing
DAEMON_USER=bob
 
# Get lsb functions
. /lib/lsb/init-functions
 
do_start () {
	log_begin_msg "Starting syncthing daemon..."
	HOMEDIR=`getent passwd $DAEMON_USER | cut -d: -f6`
	if [ -x $DAEMON ]; then
		HOME="$HOMEDIR" start-stop-daemon --start -c $DAEMON_USER --pidfile $HOMEDIR/.config/syncthing/syncthing.pid --make-pidfile --background --exec $DAEMON
	fi
	log_end_msg $?
}
do_stop () {
	log_begin_msg "Stopping syncthing daemon..."
	HOMEDIR=`getent passwd $DAEMON_USER | cut -d: -f6`
	if [ -x $DAEMON ]; then
		start-stop-daemon -o -c $DAEMON_USER -K -u $DAEMON_USER -x $DAEMON
	fi
	log_end_msg $?
}
 
status () {
	status_of_proc "$DAEMON" syncthing
}
 
case "$1" in
  start)
	do_start
	;;
  restart)
  	do_stop
  	/bin/sleep 1
  	do_start
  	;;
  status)
  	status
  	;;
  stop)
	do_stop
	;;
  *)
	echo "Usage: syncthing [start|stop|restart|status]" >&2
	exit 3
	;;
esac
 
exit 0