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Ending support for Dropbox syncing to drives with certain uncommon file systems

dropboxforum.com

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Re: Ending support for Dropbox syncing to drives with certain uncommon file systems

#151
post #110
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just use syncthing. It works better, is open source, and runs on everything.

Doesn't that require you to play sysadmin running your own servers?

syncthing is p2p, you just run it on the devices that you want to sync with

Re: Ending support for Dropbox syncing to drives with certain uncommon file systems

#152
post #39

It's not encrypted ext4, it's ecryptfs (which acts as a separate layer entirely, creating a virtual encrypted filesystem on top of ext4) - probably doesn't support some inotify feature or some extended attributes that aren't set correctly when used through ecryptfs. If instead you used dmcrypt and encrypted the whole device or partition you'd probably have no issue as it looks just like any other EXT4 FS to the syste…

Home directory encryption via ecryptfs is now the default in most Ubuntu variants, and it would be insane not to attempt to support it. That said, given that my Dropbox subscription just renewed (and that Linux is pretty much the only reason I'm still using it, since there is no OneDrive client I can rely on), I am really sad this seems to be a future direction for Dropbox.

If it just renewed and this changes breaks your use case you can probably request a refund since your system is no longer supported.

Re: Ending support for Dropbox syncing to drives with certain uncommon file systems

#153
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I noticed Dropbox started setting their own xattrs on my files a year or two ago if I recall correctly. My guess at the time was that they were using it for cheaper rename detection, using an xattr UUID, instead of using heuristics to compare {inode, btime, mtime, size, name, folder}. In other words, they would match up the xattr UUID across CREATE and DELETE events to merge them into RENAME events. Missing RENAME ev…

Or you keep a local db of synced files and compare hashes

Not if you consider speed and CPU consumption.

Re: Ending support for Dropbox syncing to drives with certain uncommon file systems

#154

TL;DR: Dropbox tells with a very unhelpful popup: "Move Dropbox location - Dropbox will stop syncing in November" . And on the forums, dropboxer Jay precises that starting Nov. 7, 2018, they're limiting support to Windows / NTFS, macOS / HFS+ & APFS, linux/Ext4. They say missing X-attrs support is what guides dropping other fs. They didn't answer yet if displaying this message to users of common-through-Ubuntu Ext4+e…

Missing xattrs? What?

Re: Ending support for Dropbox syncing to drives with certain uncommon file systems

#155
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you kindly provide recommendations? I'm looking for a sync service which can run on windows AND linux (which is why onedrive and google drive are out)...and i'm willing to pay a fair monthly fee.

I would recommend Syncthing. Fully open source. It is however self-hosted. But they have clients for basically everything, including mobile phones.

I used to run syncthing...but about 1 year ago (when i started with current employer) they blocked it. i forgot what port it uses, but my employer gave me the ol' wag of the finger for "using an unauthorized app". Funny how dropbox was not blocked but syncthing was.

Re: Ending support for Dropbox syncing to drives with certain uncommon file systems

#156
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not as such users are just a vocal minority, and probably not enough to use as a consumer group.

And they really hate paying for stuff. Doubly so for things they think are simple and can be done "by myself".

And you wonder why if this is what they get when they pay.

Re: Ending support for Dropbox syncing to drives with certain uncommon file systems

#157
I continue to wonder about Dropbox's support for Linux. It's been the primary reason that I use them so heavily and recommend them so often.

If you look at the filename on the linux download is says 2015 in the filename. Has the linux client gone untouched for 3 years?

Re: Ending support for Dropbox syncing to drives with certain uncommon file systems

#158

For those interested in open source alternatives, syncthing, NextCloud (fork of ownCloud), and Seafile are some of the big names in this space, as others have mentioned. Personally I'm on syncthing. It's one of the best pieces of software I've ever used. My only complaint is it's not really instantaneous for me. In theory it works with inotify, but I've never quite been able to get it to work. I'm confident it will e…

I'd definitely throw Keybase in there as well. To me it has the easiest experience being cross platform, integrated with the filesystem, end-to-end encrypted, and having solved the identity proof piece.

Re: Ending support for Dropbox syncing to drives with certain uncommon file systems

#159
Syncthing will do the job. Yes, it doesn't implement a cloud store like Dropbox. You have a couple of alternatives: 1) get a cheap vps host (digitalocean, vultr, etc.) and make it part of your syncthing 'cluster'. 2) get a raspberry-pi running syncthing and a big external HD and put that somewhere else (parent's, brother's, office, etc.).

Re: Ending support for Dropbox syncing to drives with certain uncommon file systems

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not talking about FTP, which isn’t a network file system. I’m talking about NFS, AFS, and sucessors in that line of development. E.g. https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/snehcp/coda-file-system . I’m literally talking about the theory of the paper by Richard Gabriel ( https://www.dreamsongs.com/RiseOfWorseIsBetter.html ) which is that worse solutions often win because it takes too much time to bring a good solution…

In that case it might have been helpful if you stated that you were shifting the context away from FTP; as was the context in the GPs comment. ;) NFS and AFS (from what limited I know of it) are more designed for local networks thus to leverage NFS over a WAN you'd then need to tunnel your connection (eg via SSH or VPN). So while there is obviously overlap between them and Dropbox I wouldn't really say the two are al…

>you'd then need to tunnel your connection (eg via SSH or VPN)

Well, there is an sshfs FUSE filesystem, for what it's worth

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