Mount external storage inside Seafile (e.g. Dropbox)

[Reto Vogel]

Hello

Since some days, I'm evaluating the perfect Cloudsoftware to run on my home server. I will have a deeper look into OwnCloud, Seafile and Pydio.

Now I've implemented Seafile on my homeserver and doing some tests now. 

As I'm using Dropbox now, Id like to include it's data into my private cloud. But I would like to link only to Dropbox - no data migration. This is because of faster data-exchange to friends. I would use the private cloud for me, but it would be great to have a single entry-point to my "Cloud-World". Is this possible with Seafile? I know, that in OwnCloud and Pydio there is a function like this implemented.

The coolest thing would be, If I could mount Dropbox store as an additional Library in Seafile.

Looking forward getting a (hopefully a positive) feedback.

Regards

Reto

[Impiastro]

You can create a Seafile library and set Dropbox client side to save its data inside this folder (library).

All operations should work. Every change made in the library by Seafile will be downloaded by the client and then uploaded to Dropbox.
Every change made by Dropbox will be uploaded back to Seafile.

But in this way the storage is duplicated and the "exchange" is done client side.
I think this is not the better integration possible. Every file goes through your client and if your client is not up no syncronization will be done between the 2 services.

[Reto Vogel]

Yes that's the same idea I thought about. But as you already said, the "bad" thing is the client-side synchronisation.

Due to the fact, that the files are beeing stored by Seafile in a proprietary structure (hashed etc), it's neither possible to run a Dropbox client on the server side-by-side to Seafile.

I think the last option would be a sync script using Dropbox's and Seafile's API. But to reach this goal, I'd really need to strain my pragmatic skripting/programming skills. Any volunteers :-)?

Or Seafile does implement a function like this into their base functionality :-)?

But nevertheless, Seafile matches best for me (after Pydio and Owncloud). Good job, guys!

Cheers

[Impiastro]

I'm not a core Seafile programmer; just a user, a translator and a patch contributor, so I'm not the right people for an answer to this question.

IMHO a sync script between Seafile and Dropbox is not the best choice.
Seafile hasn't yet a modular code to let "plugin" feature been contributed. It has been asked some threads ago but it hasn't yet introduced in the Seafile roadmap.

Seafile should have a "provider" concept letting developers define custom file sources for libraries.
These external sources should implement a specific interface, which bypasses the typical sync/deduplication processes of local libraries, and should be connected through specific vendor APIs.
In this way every programmer or "storage vendor" could implement its own Seafile connector towards its provider: Dropbox, Copy, Syncplicity, Pydio, ...

I don't know how difficult could be... but I think that this should be the right approach.

Obviously the Seafile Team and Seafile Community should agree with this vision and invest resources implementing this.
Furthermore, it has to decide if this could be a Business feature or a Community one.

ROb

[Reto Vogel]

Great, thank you for your feedback. I totally agree with this provider approach. Until now I assumed, that there isn't such one so I thought about realizing a simple script using the APIs. For me it doesn't matter whether I'm able to browse the Dropbox content within the Seafile GUI as long as a script syncs a specific folder within Seafile to my Dropbox.

What do I need to do to get a feedback (yes or no) of the Seafile team and community? Based on this decision I would know whether such a concept implementation is coming (and whether it is available to the community) or not. I do not want to reinvent the wheel.

Cheers

[Daniel Pan]

Hi, we don't have a plan for this feature now.

[Reto Vogel]

Hi Daniel

Thank you for your feedback. 

So I'm planning to do some scripting. If I come to any solution, I will do a post.

cheers