Use syncthing to sync between laptop, server, phone, ...
Run syncthing on the server and proxy localport 8385 to the server for config. Kick off syncthing on the server:
$ systemctl enable syncthing@joe.service
$ systemctl start syncthing@joe.service
$ systemctl status syncthing@joe.service
You need to connect to the syncthing interface over http, but we're not going to expose that to the internet.
$ # On the laptop, then hit http://localhost:8385 to configure remote syncthing.
$ ssh -L 8385:localhost:8384 joe@milbourn.org.uk
If you're behind a firewall, we'll need that tunnel again, something like:
$ autossh -fNT -D 8080 joe@milbourn.org.uk
$ all_proxy=socks5://localhost:8080 ALL_PROXY_NO_FALLBACK=1 syncthing