Ubuntu – Synchronize profiles across servers (.vimrc and .bashrc)

My suggestion would be to solve the problem of the dynamic IP (most routers have the concept of address reservation, that you can use to "fix" the IP of your computer). After that, you can use the command line version of unison:

unison -auto -batch profilename 

and you can add it to your login/logout scripts or as a cron job.

If you still need to change the ip, you can use sed in a script:

1. create a template file in ~/.unison, newprof.tmpl, like this:

   root = /home/romano/
   root = ssh://romano@MYIPHERE//home/romano/
   
   path = education
   path = research
   

2. create the following script, call it sync_newprof:

   #!/bin/bash
   # 
   cd $HOME/.unison
   cat newprof.tmpl | sed s/MYIPHERE/$1 >! newprof.prf
   unison -auto -batch profilename
   

   basically, we create a profile file changing the MYIPHERE word with the script first argument

3. now you can call it as

   sync_newprof 1.1.1.1 
   

   and it will create the profile with the given IP and sync.

I know that most hardware-specific configuration files should be out of user folders by design. Still, there are any files/folders within /home that must be left out of this sync to avoid configuration problems between different hardwares?

If you want to keep both systems totally idential and have the same software and the same settings I would stay away from at ...

.Xauthority
.xsession-errors

and copy all of the other files. But I would not try to keep desktop and notebook identical when looking at software and software settings. It is a waste of time. Synching only the normal files in /home/$USER/ (Documents, Downloads, Pictures etc) and none of the hidden files should be enough.

a single user (same name, same password).

I would advice to also use the same user ID (they probably will be the same if there is a single user on each system).

Mind though that this should not be considered a backup method and I would suggest to plan a backuo for each system.