Dropbox on Linux
August 31, 2012Should you ever need to another way to store and save files from your server besides downloading them directly (ex. your internet is too slow), you can send them to Dropbox.
Installing Dropbox
This part is quite simple. Enter your user home directory, download, and unarchive Dropbox for Linux:
cd ~
wget -O dropbox.tar.gz "http://www.dropbox.com/download/?plat=lnx.x86"
tar -tzf dropbox.tar.gz
tar -xvzf dropbox.tar.gz
This should create a folder titled .dropbox_dist
in your home directory. This is for Dropbox for Linux itself lives, but your files will be stored in ~/Dropbox
(so don’t worry or move it!).
Setting up Dropbox
Open up the Dropbox client with this:
~/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd
This will give you a link and some instructions to follow. Open the link provided to link your server as “computer” on your Dropbox account. After linking your account, close the client by pressing control+C.
Sending Files to Dropbox
Move files you want to backup or send to dropbox by using the mv
command to move them to ~/Dropbox
. I sometimes send encrypted archives and MySQL dumps to Dropbox for backup purposes.
After moving your files, open Dropbox and keep it open in the background using this:
~/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd &
It will automatically begin syncing your ~/Dropbox
folder with your account. I have noticed that dropboxd takes up quite a bit of processing power though. I suspect it’s indexing and checking which files were updated and need to be uploaded or updated.