# Dropbox ## Setup box ### Shared FileSystem #### Dropbox 1. We can use dropbox for efficient 2-way project sync! * This approach works for any IDE - `atom` or `webstorm` or `vscode` - they don't have to know about the remote filesystem. * This will allow us to write code locally and have the changes show up on the remote box. * Adding/deleting files will work * File permissions will be properly reflected * Configuring `selective sync` via the dropbox UI will prevent the transfer of bulky dependencies back to your local filesystem * such features are often difficult to setup or absent in other sync tools. * Tools like `SourceTree` can simply deal with our local filesystem without any knowledge of the remote filesystem. 2. Install Dropbox agent * * for digitalocean 64-bit droplets with Ubuntu OS: ``` cd ~ && \ curl -Lo dropbox-linux-x86_64.tar.gz https://www.dropbox.com/download?plat=lnx.x86_64 && \ sudo mkdir -p /opt/dropbox && \ sudo tar xzfv dropbox-linux-x86_64.tar.gz --strip 1 -C /opt/dropbox && \ /opt/dropbox/dropboxd ``` 3. Link the machine by copy/pasting the URL from the output window into your browser. Here's a sample of what you'll see: ``` This client is not linked to any account... Please visit https://www.dropbox.com/cli_link?host_id=xxx to link this machine. ``` 4. Once you are done linking, you will see the following output: ``` This computer is now linked to Dropbox. Welcome xxx ``` 1. Leave the terminal window with `dropboxd` running in the foreground, as-is. * NOTE: `dropboxd` will start syncing everything in your dropbox account immediately, the next few steps will work to correct this behaviour. 5. Open a new `ssh` session with your remote machine and download the `dropbox.py` command-line tool so we may tell `dropboxd` to avoid syncing anything other than our code/projects. ``` mkdir -p ~/bin && \ wget -O ~/bin/dropbox.py "http://www.dropbox.com/download?dl=packages/dropbox.py" && \ chmod 755 ~/bin/dropbox.py && \ ~/bin/dropbox.py help ``` 6. Switch to your `Dropbox` directory and exclude any files that it has begun syncing: ``` cd ~/Dropbox/ && ~/bin/dropbox.py exclude add * ``` 7. Check the status: `~/bin/dropbox.py status` 1. If its still trying to sync then every few minutes, rerun: `cd ~/Dropbox/ && ~/bin/dropbox.py exclude add *` 2. Keep running the status check again too: `~/bin/dropbox.py status` 3. After the status check declares: `Up to date` * Run this command one last time to be sure: `cd ~/Dropbox/ && ~/bin/dropbox.py exclude add *` 4. Now the contents of your `Dropbox` directory should be empty: `cd ~/Dropbox/ && ls` 5. Feel free to take a look at everything which has been excluded: `~/bin/dropbox.py exclude list` 6. If the directory you want to sync is also excluded, then remove it from exclude list by `~/bin/dropbox.py exclude remove [DIRECTORY] [DIRECTORY]` 8. Now that we've excluded everything known to us, you can place any new code-related projects & folders into dropbox and they will sync between. * > You probably don't want to host content out of your Dropbox folder, but there's a basic trick for mirroring Dropbox content outside of the Dropbox folder: create a symbolic link. > > Example: ln -s /var/www/foo.com \~/Dropbox/foo.com > > This will cause Dropbox to treat /var/www/foo.com as if it resided inside the Dropbox folder. All other clients will see foo.com as a folder within the Dropbox folder, and will transparently sync across that symlink. 9. We cannot count on keeping our first ssh session alive forever to run `dropboxd` so let's [set it up as a service](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-dropbox-client-as-a-service-on-ubuntu-14-04#set-up-service-script) ``` cd ~ && \ sudo curl -o /etc/init.d/dropbox https://gist.githubusercontent.com/thisismitch/d0133d91452585ae2adc/raw/699e7909bdae922201b8069fde3011bbf2062048/dropbox && \ sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/dropbox && \ echo DROPBOX_USERS="root" >> /etc/default/dropbox && \ sudo update-rc.d dropbox defaults && \ sudo service dropbox start ``` * As a safety measure, I [forked](https://gist.github.com/pulkitsinghal/b7d9230e6ef398bce307468e849baf27) `thisismitch`'s gist in case it ever gets taken down. 10. As a convenience, on your remote box, you can edit `~/.bashrc` to add an alias: ``` # added on jul 18 2017 by pulkit alias dropbox='~/bin/dropbox.py' ``` this will let you use shorthand like `dropbox status` instead of `~/bin/dropbox.py status` 11. If you code using dropbox for sync long enough, you will run into an issue where dropbox will either crash or hang or both because of a limit on maximum number of files it can monitor for changes. * If you are lucky then the logs will magically pop-up on your console stating: ``` Unable to monitor entire Dropbox folder hierarchy. Please run "echo fs.inotify.max_user_watches=100000 | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf; sudo sysctl -p" and restart Dropbox to fix the problem. Unable to monitor entire Dropbox folder hierarchy. Please run "echo fs.inotify.max_user_watches=100000 | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf; sudo sysctl -p" and restart Dropbox to fix the problem. ``` * You can protect against this by [understanding](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/35711897/dropbox-fs-inotify-error) what is going on. For example I found out that I had provided significantly less resources than what dropbox recommends! ``` # how many watchers have been made available? $ cat /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_watches 8192 # how many watchers have been made available? $ sysctl fs.inotify.max_user_watches fs.inotify.max_user_watches = 8192 ``` * Or you could simply go ahead and make the fix: ``` # 1. increase the number of watchers $ echo fs.inotify.max_user_watches=100000 | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf; sudo sysctl -p # 2. stop dropbox daemon if its running $ ~/bin/dropbox.py stop # 3. start the daemon again $ /opt/dropbox/dropboxd & # 4. check the status, it should start humming along again, soon: $ dropbox status Syncing (22,758 files remaining) Indexing 21,025 files... Uploading 1,729 files... $ dropbox status Syncing (21,995 files remaining) Indexing 19,825 files... Uploading 2,166 files... ``` * You're welcome ;) #### Other References * * * * *