Build your own private, encrypted, open-source Dropbox clone
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Build your own private, encrypted, open-source Dropbox clone
1–10 of 64 posts
Re: Build your own private, encrypted, open-source Dropbox clone
#2I wonder if this is really usable like Dropbox. I tried owncloud which is supposed to be the more stable alternative but it kept replacing new files with old ones, sync took ages and security was weak. I really want to support this kind of projects but they hold me from being productive, which I really need right now.
Re: Build your own private, encrypted, open-source Dropbox clone
#3You have to trust the VPS provider.
Re: Build your own private, encrypted, open-source Dropbox clone
#4You have to trust the VPS provider.
You don't have to if you use EncFS. All encryption is done client-side.
The only thing your VPS provider could do is delete your files, but Unison's backup feature should protect you from losing your files (in a way).
Re: Build your own private, encrypted, open-source Dropbox clone
#5I wonder if this is really usable like Dropbox. I tried owncloud which is supposed to be the more stable alternative but it kept replacing new files with old ones, sync took ages and security was weak. I really want to support this kind of projects but they hold me from being productive, which I really need right now.
The underlying sync software (Unison) has been around for years now and is regarded as stable. So syncing should work just fine, although you should keep a backup of your files just in case.
You can also use Dropbox and Encbox together if you're unsure: Point your Dropbox installation to ~/Encbox and have Dropbox sync your (then decrypted) files. So you can be sure to have backups, file sharing features, etc. and see if Encbox is stable enough for you.
Re: Build your own private, encrypted, open-source Dropbox clone
#6You have to trust the VPS provider.
You don't have to if you use EncFS. All encryption is done client-side. The only thing your VPS provider could do is delete your files, but Unison's backup feature should protect you from losing your files (in a way).
Your VPS provider, can in effect, chroot in to your environment, so EncFS is vunerable.
Re: Build your own private, encrypted, open-source Dropbox clone
#7Nice guide. One nitpick:
> Add a user for our project and give him a decent password:
Better off not giving the encbox user a password at all and only allow SSH key based login. You can already login to the primary/root account and sudo/su to setup the encbox user and copy SSH keys.
Re: Build your own private, encrypted, open-source Dropbox clone
#8This should be taken a step further and have a UI and web control panel just like the real dropbox.
Re: Build your own private, encrypted, open-source Dropbox clone
#9I wonder if this is really usable like Dropbox. I tried owncloud which is supposed to be the more stable alternative but it kept replacing new files with old ones, sync took ages and security was weak. I really want to support this kind of projects but they hold me from being productive, which I really need right now.
The underlying sync software (Unison) has been around for years now and is regarded as stable. So syncing should work just fine, although you should keep a backup of your files just in case. You can also use Dropbox and Encbox together if you're unsure: Point your Dropbox installation to ~/Encbox and have Dropbox sync your (then decrypted) files. So you can be sure to have backups, file sharing features, etc. and see…
I often have Unison not notice file changes until I repeatedly scan or sometimes even until weeks later. If I new a better alternative I would not use it.
Re: Build your own private, encrypted, open-source Dropbox clone
#10This should be taken a step further and have a UI and web control panel just like the real dropbox.
Putting aside the work itself of creating a UI (this is just a simple install guide), that's not possible without exposing the encfs keys to the remote server. In this setup the client data is all encrypted before it reaches the server. The server is just a sync point for multiple clients.
You could have a UI (web or otherwise) on a separate client but it would have nothing to do with the server. It would just be a client that provides a UI interface to the decrypted encfs filesystem.