Using "Cloud" drives in FreeBSD

[Jerry]

I am using both "OneDrive" and "Dropbox" cloud drives on my Win-8.1 machine
to store data. I love the fact that I can use them as real drives without
having to go through hoops to mount them and gain access to them.

Is there anyway I can accomplish the same thing with FreeBSD?

--
Jerry
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[and...@jensenwaud.com]

There is a Linux client for Dropbox. You might me able to run it in FreeBSD through Linux emulation.

Sent from my iPad

[Jerry]

On Sun, 22 Jun 2014 17:14:35 +0200, and...@jensenwaud.com stated:

> > On 22 Jun 2014, at 4:27 pm, Jerry <je...@seibercom.net> wrote:
> >
> > I am using both "OneDrive" and "Dropbox" cloud drives on my Win-8.1
> > machine to store data. I love the fact that I can use them as real drives
> > without having to go through hoops to mount them and gain access to them.
> >
> > Is there anyway I can accomplish the same thing with FreeBSD?
> >

> There is a Linux client for Dropbox. You might me able to run it in FreeBSD
> through Linux emulation.

I don't think that is going to work. From what I can tell, it ONLY works with
"Dropbox" and it does not make the "cloud" appear as part of the file system
the way it does in Windows.

[Roland Smith]

On Sun, Jun 22, 2014 at 10:27:23AM -0400, Jerry wrote:
> I am using both "OneDrive" and "Dropbox" cloud drives on my Win-8.1 machine
> to store data. I love the fact that I can use them as real drives without
> having to go through hoops to mount them and gain access to them.
>
> Is there anyway I can accomplish the same thing with FreeBSD?

There is a FUSE implementation for dropbox; https://github.com/arekzb/dropfuse
It is not in the ports tree. It probably requires devel/py-fusefs since it is
written in Python.

A similar thing seems to exist for onedrive: https://github.com/mk-fg/onedrive-fuse-fs

Depending on how your computer connects to the internet, you can mount it
using a startup script (on a desktop), or use a script called by devd to mount
or unmount it automatically once an ethernet connection comes up or goes down
(laptop).

E.g. on a laptop I might have the following in /etc/devd/conf;

notify 0 {
match "system" "IFNET";
match "type" "LINK_UP";
match "subsystem" "(re0|wlan0)";
action "/usr/local/etc/rc.d/etherup $subsystem";
};

The etherup script contains;

#!/bin/sh
LOGGER="logger -t etherup -p daemon.notice"

subsystem=$1
${LOGGER} "The '$subsystem' link has come up. Acquiring IP address."
service dhclient quietstart $subsystem
${LOGGER} "Starting firewall."
service pf onestart
${LOGGER} "Synchronize time."
service ntpd onestart

You could easily add the dropbox and onedrive stuff to that:

if [ ! -e /var/run/dropfuse ]; then
mkdir -p /media/dropbox
touch /var/run/dropfuse
python dropfuse.py <dropbox.com url> /media/dropbox &
fi

Of course you'd have to create multiple different directories if you'd like to
mount different dropbox URLs.

And you probably want to write a scripts than kills the dropfuse script and
removes the file in /var/run if devd gets a LINK_DOWN on event.


Roland
--
R.F.Smith http://rsmith.home.xs4all.nl/
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[Gregory Orange]

On 23/06/14 00:03, Jerry wrote:
> On Sun, 22 Jun 2014 17:14:35 +0200, and...@jensenwaud.com stated:

>> There is a Linux client for Dropbox. You might me able to run it in FreeBSD
>> through Linux emulation.
>
> I don't think that is going to work. From what I can tell, it ONLY works with
> "Dropbox" and it does not make the "cloud" appear as part of the file system
> the way it does in Windows.

I'm not sure I follow, but will share this observation in case it is
helpful:

I use Dropbox on my Ubuntu machine, and my Dropbox directory just
becomes a subdirectory of my home directory. That is, cd ~/Dropbox
yields the directory containing files synchronised from dropbox.com
through the program. Double-clicking on the system tray Dropbox icon
opens the same directory in my file manager.

I have no experience with OneDrive.

HTH,
Greg.

[Jerry]

On Mon, 23 Jun 2014 13:49:43 +0800, Gregory Orange stated:

> On 23/06/14 00:03, Jerry wrote:
> > On Sun, 22 Jun 2014 17:14:35 +0200, and...@jensenwaud.com stated:
> >> There is a Linux client for Dropbox. You might me able to run it in
> >> FreeBSD through Linux emulation.
> >
> > I don't think that is going to work. From what I can tell, it ONLY works
> > with "Dropbox" and it does not make the "cloud" appear as part of the
> > file system the way it does in Windows.
>
> I'm not sure I follow, but will share this observation in case it is
> helpful:
>
> I use Dropbox on my Ubuntu machine, and my Dropbox directory just

> becomes a subdirectorye unfortunately changes. of my home directory. That

> is, cd ~/Dropbox yields the directory containing files synchronised from
> dropbox.com through the program. Double-clicking on the system tray Dropbox
> icon opens the same directory in my file manager.
>
> I have no experience with OneDrive.

First of all , the operative word here is "Ubuntu". Ubuntu is ahead of the
curve in creating a "user friendly" environment in the non-microsoft
community.

I have been Googling this for a few days now. There are several projects
working on a solution to this problem; creating file system entrees
automatically for users of these various services, without having to perform
Herculean tasks just to gain access. In other words, "It just works". What
will most likely happen if history is any indicator is that the *.nix
community will come up with a workable solution. It will propagate through
the various flavors of *.nix for a few years and then five years or more later
FreeBSD will jump on board. Unfortunately, by that time the landscape will
have unfortunately changed.

--
Jerry

[Daniel Staal]

--As of June 22, 2014 10:27:23 AM -0400, Jerry is alleged to have said:

> I am using both "OneDrive" and "Dropbox" cloud drives on my Win-8.1
> machine to store data. I love the fact that I can use them as real drives
> without having to go through hoops to mount them and gain access to them.
>
> Is there anyway I can accomplish the same thing with FreeBSD?

--As for the rest, it is mine.

Just to give a different option: Owncloud works with FreeBSD, and would
work with Win-8 as well. If you can run a server someplace, it has Dropbox
like features.

Daniel T. Staal

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