Slashdot Mirror
Open Source Alternative To Dropbox?
garry_g writes "While 'the cloud' may be one of the major buzzwords of the Internet industry, anybody concerned with security and privacy will most likely not touch it with a 10-foot pole. While I am guilty of using Dropbox for occasional data storage or quick picture snaps with my Android phone, I do watch out not to store anything important on there (or incriminating), no matter what the "privacy policy" may be. I was wondering: what useful alternative is there to Dropbox on the FOSS market, which will allow access by both windows/linux boxes, but also mobile devices (specifically Android). I know there are front-end add ons for Windows (and Linux tools of course) e.g. for SVN, but most likely no implementations for mobile use as far as I can tell... And, of course, the backend should run on a Linux box ;)"
Sparkleshare is still under development, and it seems to have the most traction of any user-friendly project. When released, it will be the open-source Dropbox replacement.
I agree though, it's very hard to get rid of the convenience of Dropbox. Not just for saving files, but for syncing your configuration across machines (save your .dotFiles in ~/Dropbox and then symlink to ~/). But when they refuse to support the BSD's (2 out of the 4 machines I regularly work on), and their Linux implementation starting requiring disabling SELinux, they pretty much did it to themselves. Not to mention the whole thing where the Dropbox CTO admitted they could look at your files if they wanted.
The World is Yours.
There are Syncany and SparkleShare, but neither seems to satisfy your requirements yet as they are still quite new projects and work-in-progress (without e.g. android clients afaics).
Dropbox is perfectly secure if you use TrueCrypt.
SparkleShare may be what you're looking for. I've had my eye on it for awhile, but I havn't used it yet.
---Alex
Rent a system at rackspace or a similar place; run linux on it?
Most Respectfully Yours Mark Allyn Bellingham, Washington
Not to state the obvious but... is Ubuntu One what you mean?
It has been a cloud type service that has been around for how long? Granted it's not private, but all you have to do is encrypt your files. And as for privacy, considering the things that people continuously post there, and don't get caught, speaks to the possibilities. Yeah I suppose, data retention has only in the last few years gotten good enough to make a difference. But there have got to be some things we could learn about making the cloud work better from it.
Ubuntu One, but the server-side is proprietary. And it is rather buggy on other platforms.
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
There are some decent-looking hosted alternatives to dropbox which do client-side encryption. I've looked into this a bit, but I haven't tried any of these yet, so YMMV...
One particularly interesting one is TarSnap. The best part is the client is OSS, so you can verify that encryption is done properly (strong & client-side). You could even reverse the protocol and design your own server software, if you want.
http://www.tarsnap.com/
Another interesting one is SpiderOak. However their client is not OSS, so you have to trust that they're doing the encryption properly
https://spideroak.com/
Here are some other potential hosts, but I'm not sure exactly how proper the encryption is:
http://www.boxcryptor.com/
http://syncplicity.com/products/
For this very reason. I use RackSpace and S3 for storage, the encryption occurs locally, so the cloud storage provider cannot get your data. They have free source code so you can validate how it works too. Has never failed on me and saved my data several times with backup and sync. Happy customer
Dropbox is secure - just use PGP to encrypt everything you put up there, and decrypt it upon arrival at your host machine. I suppose that would require a jail-broken Android, but that's not all bad... I don't generally accept arguments that the cloud isn't secure. It is, if used correctly (see above). The cloud is like a public restroom - you treat it differently than the one in your house by being much more conscious about cleanliness and such (in the cloud, more conscious about security), but it's perfectly acceptable to use both.
Deja Moo: The distinct feeling that you've heard this bull before.
Why is SVN being compared to DropBox? There's no mobile app for SVN access because, typically, people don't do development on their phones...
Why would he need dropbox for pictures snapped from his android phone?
If he has Android, he has google.
If he has google he has Picasa.
If he has picasa his android will sync with it at will.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
I've had personal and business accounts at rsync.net going back over 5 years.
It's simple, it's straightforward, and it works out of the box with everything I use.
Oh, and there's this:
http://www.rsync.net/resources/notices/canary.txt
It's not the cheapest offering, but my employers' account @ 2TB is around 28 cents/GB, per month.
On the open-source front, the only option I know is ownCloud. It provides the software to build your 'Cloud' storage, but you must provide your own hardware.
On the other side, you can try Wuala. It is not Open Source, but it encrypts all your files before uploading them. There are clients for almost every platform.
MOD THE CHILD UP!
Novell open-sourced ifolder. there are clients for linux, windows, mac, and even iphone. Someone just needs to write a client for android.
We are implementing it on a large scale, with Active Directory integration, and 270 mobile laptop users. I understand novell is moving to neutron (their new file/folder sync technology). It should solve some of the issues we had, such as integrating with a windows server, however it will not be open-source. We just used the ifolder client, and a proxy user for everyone's folder to bypass that issue. We looked extensively for a solution, and settled on ifolder, however mobile phones weren't part of the requirement.
It might not be as convenient and be designed for an entirely different purpose, but it works for me.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
I put a Linux box with an SSH server and rsync on my FIOS line. Then I use rsync for Android to sync file shares between the Linux box and my Android tablet. This has been working fine for me. It might even be more secure than Dropbox.
Pretty sad isn't it?
SFTP is far better than both and is open.
I believe that rsync is able to cover most of dropbox's features, if not all. By using rsync you aren't bound to any service provider or even internet access. You may not have the flashy web interface and flashy android/desktop client but it is somewhat trivial to implement a front-end to rsync that abstracts all implementation details. If you wish to have some sort of history log then you can always set your clients to implement some form of incremental backup of your repository.
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
take a look at www.spideroak.com encrypted storage works on Linux or Windows
And which one are any good?
That's what bothers me about the "let me google that for you" crowd. Google is a search engine. It is no expert system, and it certainly makes no recommendation based on certain qualities of a product.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It's true there are lots of results -- but having researched this myself for the last few weeks, I'm pretty sure there is nothing fully baked. Dropbox is quite good at what it does (security aside), and replicating it across multiple OS platforms and mobile devices is quite hard.
What I'd love to see (although not FOSS) is simply the ability to run dropbox on a private sever. sadly, dropbox shows no interest in this solution.
Sounds like you're looking for ownCloud. It's still under heavy development but the file storage functions work very well and it's accessible on Mac, Windows & Linux via webdav and from everywhere else via a web interface. There are also a couple of mobile apps in the works and it runs on a standard LAMP stack. http://owncloud.org/index.php/Main_Page And a blog post about the current status: http://owncloudtest.blogspot.com/2011/06/owncloud-20-just-merged-with.html
I've always pictured the color of OS zealotry as a sort of bright flamingo pinkish hue
Evernote (http://www.evernote.com) has stand-alone apps for PC, Mac and the most popular mobile devices, as well as a web clipper plug-in for Safari. Super-simple to use.
Great, all that's left is to update your server periodically, secure your ftp, and find some sort of auto-syncing functionality.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
FTP is the traditional method, although kind of dated, some say not so secure. SCP is very simple, there are command line clients, fancy GUI clients, probably works with Android too. Checkout WebDAV too, the Apache webserver probably has a module supporting it, if not, you may find dedicated servers. Probably lots of clients support it.
If you have Linux PC that is accessible from the internet, then just use Unison (http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/). I use it all the time to synchronize my PC at work, my PC at home, and my laptop. It is quite fast, my synchronized folder is currently ~7GB and it takes maybe 10s to check for changes (not sure how Unison manages to do this).
http://www.linux.com/archive/feature/152262 http://www.linux.com/archive/feature/154149 One of those must have a api...
If he has Android, he has google.
Not necessarily. Android-powered devices not using the Open Handset Alliance version of Android don't get the non-free Google apps.
I thought of this when I read the posting, because B*y.com sent me junk mail today about a sale on Pogo Plug Black. There's a Linux distribution for these - http://plugapps.com/index.php5/Main_Page.
Your own cloud.
I'm using shared web hosting. The webhost provides FTP access, perl, python, RoR, PHP, MySQL,Curl and all the usual stuff and a lot of storage and bandwith. Is there any OSS stuff I can install on the server that have good clients for win, linux and maybe even android?
People actually have enough time these days in their daily lives to fill up their phones memory/micro sd cards on every day usage? Or is this just people trying to look busy so others think they have somthing going on in their lives.
If you take so many photos you abviously want some quality in the image so why not just get any of the 100's of digital pocket cameras out there?
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
For share with others, a perfect replacement for FTPs i use nephthys. Its based in webdav with a very simple web interface to allow users to share files. It auto expires shared files, so you do dont waste space with forgotten shares.
the git needs a few tweaks to work in a recent debian ( i will send a patch do the developer in a few days/weeks)... the .deb packages didnt worked for me
yet this is a very simple solution and works very in windows, macox and linux
it is almost unknown, but it saved me from thousand of user calls asking for help with ftp problems (clients, access, quotas and transfer)
Higuita
In this discussion a lot of people are totally overlooking the user-friendly aspects of Dropbox, which is really its main selling point (yeah, I realize it's Slashdot). Once set up, the end user doesn't even have to think about it. And the cross-platform clients work well enough that you don't have to really think about whether you're on a Windows box, a Mac, or an Android phone.
I wouldn't use Dropbox for anything sensitive, but it's great for stuff like keeping the family's grocery list. I even use it for some work-related meeting notes (these aren't secure - if anyone saw them it wouldn't cause any issues) - I can edit them on my computer, and when I go to the meeting (or grocery store) they're available on my phone without my having to remember to transfer them beforehand.
All that said - I'd love a equally user-friendly Dropbox alternative that I could host on my own server.
#DeleteChrome
If you have incriminating files, why are you storing them on the cloud at all? It seems doubtful that the fourth amendment would protect stuff stored via cloud computing. Maybe it was just an odd choice of words, or not "legally" incriminating, but if physically securing your files is an option, that would probably be better. I have a hard time putting my faith in data storage I can't see. My gut feeling is that for -most- circumstances, a USB drive on your person would be more secure than anything on the cloud.
but since search engines return results based on your pattern of usage, thebra's results might be better than garry_g's ones.
Is there a reason not to use WebDAV for this? I know there's a WebDAV server (optionally) built into Tomcat, and I expect that there are others out there. I know there's terrific WebDAV client access from MacOS, Windows, and iOS, and the last time I checked (many years ago) there was adequate client access from Linux if you went looking for it -- I assume the situation on a modern desktop is completely adequate now?
bing and decide, bro (sarcasm)
rsync or sftp
Of course, if you have incriminating evidence on your phone/server then privacy won't help much if law enforcement shows up with a search warrant. It's easier to obey laws in the first place to void this particular problem.
The Linux Action Show in episode s16e10 describes how to ditch Google Docs, gmail, etc. I believe they continue with the project in s17e02
This requires your own server though. But it's all linux based softwares. Pretty cool episode. YMMV....
Are there any options that would work for internally hosted solutions (your data center not theirs) that would have support?
I have heard this question multiple times, but one of the requirements for some enterprises is to have support. Do any of these products (or similar, open source or not) that include support?
"... all that's left is to update your server periodically..."
Look, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Either someone else hosts the service, does the maintenance, and as such has physical access, or you use your own server, in which you have to do maintenance.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
I've skimmed the threads here for alternatives and for various reasons they're not ideal. So I wanted to ask about an alternative approach: What about encrypting each individual file? What about using WinRar or .ZIP and password protecting (and compressing!) the file individually? Preferably something where I could right-click on the file, enter a password, then there's a password-encyrpted file ready to be sent through DB.
Is there a secure solution this way? Is it both PC and Mac compatible?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
1. Get a cheap VPS.
2. SSH -> sshfs for linux or expandrive for windows.
3. Have a folder named public in the folder you sshfs. Have that be the root of your webserver directory.
No no no, I'm saying his solution isn't a complete solution. Here's what his answer was like:
I need to get from St. Louis to Los Angeles!
Buy some Michelin tires.
Boy it'd be nice if the people offering solutions were actually aware of what all DropBox does.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
A solid open source offering should not be based on the cloud, but based on a P2P model, because cloud storage is too centralized a model and someone will have to pay for it. P2P file sharing has been providing DropBox-like functionality for years. But both the smarmy reputation and the lack of file system integration left an opening for DropBox.
http://10CentMail.com - the Amazon SES app.
ifolder, from Novell, but open sourced now. secure and encrypted and you can make it as big or small as you want. And it has a web interface..... ifolder.com
~corporate tool, but employed~
You can use rsync for this. And if you want it more complex and fully automated, you can add lsync to automatically push local changes to the "Master" server, and a post-xfer-exec script on the "Master" server to push changes back out to the other "Slave" servers (If they're connectable). I'm intending to put this in place for a multi-way (3, in this case) sync system myself.
This may or may not be helpful.
I have my own server running WebDAV. It's "stock" Apache, the DAV module is included. A couple of people have mentioned Subversion, but of course that overlays functionality that may not be necessary or practical. DAV is fairly simple, and dedicated to supporting an essential set of semantics for accessing files.
The reason this may not be useful to you is that my primary use of the server has been as my "remote" fileserver, for Mac and Windows clients. In some sense, it'd be easier if I wanted to set up CIFS (Samba) or AFP (Apple), but neither of these work all that great when you have significant latency, which is the case if the server isn't right there physically to where you're working. Many iOS apps have taken to being written to directly talk to things like Dropbox, or WebDAV. That may not be true about the Android Apps that you care about. I agree with the premise that Dropbox doesn't give a warm fuzzy security feeling, though the functionality is very nice.
Setting up WebDAV on Apache, secured with TLS, isn't all that difficult. The protocol works well in a high-latency environment. The one technical issue that I've found is that there aren't good solutions for access control - it's not easy to set up multiple user accounts for one server and enforce separate access for those users. I've looked at a few kludges but nothing that seems satisfying.
Depending on your specific need, though, don't rule WebDAV out.
K. M. Peterson Boston inbox@kmpeterson.com
Surely not *everything* in your Dropbox folder is private and sensitive? Sure, your Excel spreadsheet with last years' taxes are, but your vacation photos?
For those few files I have that I consider sensitive, I just zip them up with a long/strong password and use encryption. There are a few Android apps that can deal with these zip files, and I know all my desktop OSes can.
So the privacy/etc policy of the provider doesn't matter in the slightest.
Treat it as a world readable file, doing anything else is being retarded.
If you know enough about security to deal with SELinux, you can't have been surprised to find that Dropbox employees, and NSA/CIA/FBI with Dropbox-supplied access, can read your files. Regardless of whether they are encrypted by Dropbox while on the Dropbox servers or not, there is no other way they could send and receive arbitrary files without this capability. Either you are pretending to know nothing about security, or pretending to know something.
Infuriate left and right
Just place a Truecrypt file in Dropbox. Encrypt the heck out of it, and use that for storage and syncing. It doesn't take much longer, and leaves you with a warm and fuzzy secure feeling :) Since Truecrypt runs in portable mode, you can just put the Truecrypt files outside your encrypted storage and access it anywhere you can get web access. I put anything I want to secure in my Truecrypt file, things I don't care about (music, video, some pictures) I just use Dropbox normally.
I wish there was a fscking blue pill
I believe that the file is locked while updating. This is only really an issue if you are using Dropbox collaboratively (i.e. two people making changes to the same file at the same time), but even then Dropbox saves older revisions of files SVN-style so you can rollback to a previous version if there are problems.
By the way, if anyone doesn't already have a Dropbox account, if you use my referal link we can both get an extra 250MB of free storage space.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
I use Spideroak and like it. I'm actually surprised no one else has mentioned it; it's even present in openSUSE repositories and possibly Ubuntu as well. It's not opensource but it works great, has full data encryption, and runs on Windows, Mac, Linux. You get 2GB free. I use it only to mirror my dotfiles and a couple of other key docs, and I'm well below the limit, so I don't pay. You can sync files across computers, and make others available from a publically-accessible web page.
No complaints from me. I do wish they offered the "send us an email and $5 and we'll email you a burned CD of your files" thing, but so it goes.
If this were Usenet, I'd killfile the lot of you.
Asking what is an alternative to dropbox is only part of the question.
The whole question is what is an personal & private alternative to "the cloud".
Eben Moglen's FreedomBox effort is part of the answer but I am not aware of a more complete solution.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
I've been working on my own Dropbox clone. It seeks to address some of the problems I've found in the other open source Dropbox clones which cause me not to use them:
- No using git. Git is fantastic for text files, but not for binary files. I want to be able to drop lots of pictures. (rules out Sparkleshare)
- Must sync files between multiple computers nearly immediately, without running synchronization manually, or setting up a rsync cron job. (I.e., if I update a config file on one computer, I want to be able to go into the other room, and have it Just Work. This seems to rule out Syncany - but someone correct me if I'm wrong. Also, ownCloud doesn't have client other than the web client, so they can't do the nice sync like Dropbox's).
- Support multiple storage mechanisms in a "plug-able" way. This also means encryption will be extremely easy to add. (ownCloud doesn't seem to support any storage other than locally on the main server)
- No bloat! All I want is to synchronize my files, nothing more (ownCloud).
For now, I've been calling it "Asink" (for both "asynchronous" and "a sink" for your data). I'm doing development at https://github.com/aclindsa/asink. I am close to having it working with storing files to my personal server over SSH, but it will be a few more weeks before I think its ready for a first public release, as I only made the first commit a little over a week ago.
First you mention how the cloud shouldn't be trusted and then ask about alternatives to DropBox?
The essence of DropBox IS cloud! WIthout the cloud, it's just a storage box (no pun intended) you connect to via a file transfer protocol variation, perhaps also on top of a shell integration of some sort. Given how you want a Linux backend, why don't you simply register with www.hetzner.de to get yourself a quad-core 8Gb RAM bare-metal Internet-connected server with plenty of hard drive space for 50â a month and do with it everything you like, including setting up that file transfer protocol of your liking so that you can store whatever you want on it, however you want. If you want the de-facto gratis option, just share the box with 50 people - paying 1â each for substantially improved privacy plus some spare generic CPU-cycles is good, no? Versus Dropbox I mean, which I agree with you kind of sucks in a way cheap chinese toys do.
That said, good luck! I know this was chosen posted here to kickstart a debate rather than fish out THE ANSWER - the question was "rhetorical" :)
Instructions to "Build Your Own Dropbox Equivalent." CloudFS is an offshoot of GlusterFS, which is not quite ready for prime time, but getting damn close. So you'd be cautioned about trusting corporate data to this setup. For less vital stuff, it should work well.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Tonido plug is an open source wal mart server, similar to PogoPlug. I've never used it, but it sounds like exactly what you are looking for. FLOSS Weekly had a nice episode on Tonido. They have web, iOS, Android, and BlackBerry clients and are completely OSS, including the server and clients.
Wouldn't that require specific knowledge of the crime?
Wait, am I applying common sense to laws?
Just plain rsync over ssh then if you don't want any of the extra control an SFTP client gives you. Why are people pretending that dropbox is anything special instead of just a crappy workaround for email attachment size limits?
Yes I know about dropbox and that how they tired to reinvent FTP and managed to get even worse security - you can't even change a password to keep a former employee out of a work dropbox that's how stupidly broken it is. Do a search of articles on slashdot about dropbox and you can learn more about it than you would ever want to know.
Why are people pretending that dropbox is anything special instead of just a crappy workaround for email attachment size limits?
All those people have something in common: They used it.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
The trick is encrypt everything you sync in Dropbox. This can be done transparently. I use encfs and I only sync the encrypted directory to dropbox. I use this solution in my linux, windows and OSX machines. http://www.arg0.net/encfs http://wiki.dropbox.com/TipsAndTricks/IncreasePrivacyAndSafety -- blue
I've had something better for longer than it has existed so why should I use it?
I have seen it in operation. I've seen people attempt to use dropbox when the dropbox server has been telling them to wait for access to their service and have instead told them how to use something that is immediately available. I've also looked into the service and seen that it is unsuitable for anything that you wouldn't want reprinted in a newspaper - so not even as good as email with large attachments allowed. In an environment where you have multiple clients that are in competition with each other it's a showstopper since it only takes a minor stuffup on the part of the user for them to have access to files intended for someone else.
Let's face it, they tried to replace a thirty year old program and failed so badly that you can't even cut off somebody's access by changing a password but it makes it look as if you can.
Another interesting open source alternative that is currently under development is Syncany: http://www.syncany.org/ . Two advantages over most of the alternatives are: - local file encryption - support many different backends, such as SFTP/WebDav/Google Storage/etc.
I've had something better for longer than it has existed so why should I use it?
So that you know what 'better' actually means.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Dropbox isn't just a "cloud" app; it spans both cloud and local platforms. Every PC you setup with Dropbox is a local backup copy. Even better, you can selectively partition your repository onto different machines. And, Dropbox keeps a rolling history of every file, going back a month.
Dropbox makes your data thoroughly pervasive and robust, with a minimal amount effort. The risk of data loss is much, much greater than the risk of being hacked. How many times have you lost a hard drive? Or accidentally deleted an important file? Or had your computer stolen? These things happen all the time, and they are very debilitating.
We ought to be practical and focus on the real risks we're likely to face. Much as we would like to think we're important enough to be a LulzSec target, the reality is we're all pretty boring, data-wise.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
...apart from Sendmail, the Berkeley TCP/IP stack, the original httpd (and then Apache), BIND... the infrastructure of the whole fracking Internet really.
Having a kernel to run the GNU tools on is handy, as is having a free, industrial strength C/C++ compiler.
What they've done for the non-technical user is a bit of a harder one, though.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
as others have stated, checkout lipsync, https://github.com/philcryer/lipsync in the interest of full disclosure, this is my project, but I've gotten great help and feedback from the community. while I don't have the GUI goodness of something like 'sparkleshare' I'm focusing on the backend with Linux, osx and eventually windows as client options. The issues that have arisen since we started this just bolsters my original intention, so come on, download it, try it out, and point out how bad it is! I'm all for making it better!
fak3r.com
Secure, distributed and reliable, free, encrypted; what else could you want? It's a lousy nntp-replacement but it makes a great dropbox.
Syncany (http://www.syncany.org/) aims to be exactly that (Dropbox replacement). It has a Linux and Windows client. It supports syncing to a number of services and encrypts *before* going over the wire.
It is a young project, but developing quickly. It's one I "have my eye on".
The Ubuntu UK Podcast interviewed the creator. Check it out. http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/2011/05/25/s04e07-powerslave/
You can use a variety of file stores. Some very unconventional: ...
* Local Folder: uses any local folder as storage. This could be any mounted device, network file systems (NFS), or any virtual file system based on FUSE.
* FTP: uses an FTP folder as remote repository.
* IMAP: uses an IMAP folder as remote storage. Stores file chunks as e-mail attachments.
* Google Storage: uses a bucket in the Google Storage service as repository.
* Amazon S3: uses a bucket in the Amazon Simple Storage Service as remote storage.
* Rackspace Cloud Files: uses a Cloud Files container as remote storage.
* WebDAV: uses one folder in a WebDAV as remote storage.
* Picasa Web Albums: encodes the file chunks in images, and uses a Picasa album as repository.
* Windows Share (NetBIOS/CIFS): uses a Windows share as data repository.
* Box.net: uses a Box.net folder as data storage.
* SFTP/SSH: uses an SFTP folder as data storage.
* more to come
A good option when wanting full control.
I haven't used it, but I recall hearing it mentioned awhile ago on /. in connection with Dropbox's alleged (?) attempt to shut it down:
http://razorfast.com/2011/04/25/dropbox-attempts-to-kill-open-source-project/
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Since SparkleShare uses SVN for storage, understand that it will never be binary friendly. I tried getting it to work with my schoolwork archive and it choked on some of the larger files I had.
Its been many years since I listened in on the dev groups so perhaps someone else knows how stable it is. The dev website still says that the development group had been using it for a long time with absolutely no data loss.
http://www.coda.cs.cmu.edu/ljpaper/lj.html
Host an email account on your own server IMAP access, and store files by sending them to yourself. Depending on your client, you can arrange the emails in files/folders/tags.
If you are comfortable with using gmail (probably no, but hey, information is free) you can use GMailfs and mount a http://sr71.net/projects/gmailfs/ . I haven't used it myself, I don't know if it's any good.
I couldn't find a working "general mailfs" system, which kindof surprises me.
I use git, which uses SSH by default, and since I already had SSH keys setup, it works pretty smoothly. Someone suggested staying away from git because you can't purge old versions, but that's a feature in my book. As for Android, I do not know what git support is like, but it works great on my N900, laptop & servers. Automatic merges, versioning, fully distributed repos and more just makes it nice. I don't know about GUI support as I don't need it, but automating it shouldn't be hard. Would make for an interesting project to slick it up and replace time machine & drop box in one swell foop.
Nathan's blog
I've done some tests with WebDAV and it seems to be on the right way to let you store documents on your server (I hate the word cloud) and access it everywhere, you can use Linux, Windows, Android and iPhone/iPad. But you need a dedicated server (or VPS). Bye
http://www.michel.eti.br
Check out http://fak3r.com/geek/howto-build-your-own-open-source-dropbox-clone/ and the resulting project https://github.com/philcryer/lipsync
Well if you are interested in an opensource cloud storage platform you could check out http://melissi.org/ it's still under active development so it might be useful to check it's source https://www.github.com/melissiproject
On first glance, it looks like what the original request is looking for. Thanks for sweet utility site tip, water and sewer ;)
Someone give the Spideroak tip some karma.
https://spideroak.com/
I support a District Attorneys Office and have been seeking a secure way to give electronic files to defendant attorney in the "Discovery" process. The files would have to be securely stored on own servers. Looked and looked for a Dropbox like system, concluded that we would have to roll our own. The Web Programmer rejected it, saying he couldn't devote the time needed to do it. Now we are just going to setup a SFTP server with take on all the fun end user support we will have give.
It didn't take you very long to run out of actual points and resort to insults did it? Did you even bother to read anything beyond that first line?
So, I'm a freebsd user and the commands are a little different, but if he's doing this on some sort of Linux distribution, wouldn't all the 'work' be done by your package manager?
apt install whatever
cron an apt update or however it works
Use webdav and let whatever clients you want 'auto-sync' with it since well ... thats the only intelligent way to do it anyway since its supported almost everywhere and the important OSes have clients built in.
so basically install apache and mod_webdav, though I'd use subversion and get free revision retention myself if it was was being used to store documents mostly, regular webdav otherwise.
Cron a apt-update or however you do it in Linux, and forget it until you get emails from the cron job complaining that its not working.
I don't really understand why Dropbox is so hard to emulate unless you want it to scale to millions of users.
Why do FOSS people always seem to want to reinvent the wheel?
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
I didn't need multiple points, just the one. Did you have a rebuttal or a question?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe this isn't the use case of the original poster, but here is the situation that I expect most corporations face:
- Need to share files across the company or workgroup
- Files on individual workstations need to be accessible when offline from server
- Files on individual workstations need to be encrypted (in case laptop stolen, etc.)
- Need various group-based permissions for files belonging to different projects etc. (then add users to appropriate groups)
- History, version control, etc.
- Secure data transmission between client and server
- Server repository encrypted (and if on a hosting service, needs separate key from other customers); preferably able to install server software on own hardware for full control/privacy (and possibly keep within VPN)
- Client software fully supported on Windows and Mac (and preferably Linux, smartphones)
- Dead easy to use - just open and save files in the mirrored drive/directory and they sync/version automatically
- Bonus: shareable links (to files or folders), maybe sends an email containing the link. (Best to have tracking of when, by whom and with whom the file is shared, and policy control over whether allowed for certain files/folders/users, plus maybe expiration time on the link)
- Another bonus - web service to view files where you don't have the application installed locally
I haven't really evaluated them, but Spideroak and Sycplicity might be the closest that I've seen.
mod_svn being optional, if you want versioning.
Throw Apache on a Linux VM at some datacenter, use webdav clients to connect to it via SSL.
If you want, you can use an encrypting file system with your own key entered manually on startup, but if they drop it in a VM with or without your knowledge, they could certainly snoop your key and still decrypt it, but it'd certainly take more knowledge and effort than most of these places are going to have.
WebDAV support is fairly common, so you're likely to find apps that can use it much like those that use Dropbox.
If you want offline availability, well its a little more complicated, but not by much.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
http://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/8506/build-your-cloud-pt1-las-s16e10/
I wonder why noone has ever though about forking iFolder, remove its ".Net"/Mono dependencies and integrate it into Gnome. If you add some P2P and Crypto working capabilities to share big files with friends it would be great. The idea is simple, the original code is tested and opensourced, however it has never gained enough traction to work. I wonder why.
Personally, I had the chance to test it some years ago and it totally felt like a "private dropbox", however the server side it is totally linked to Novell products and installing it in Ubuntu/Debian/RedHat/CentOS is more than painful (if not almost impossible).
OTOH, when what you want is a dropbox replacement, you want it to work seamlessly and automatically ... rsync/unison are not alternatives to this unless coupled to a daemon that manages them. It's how I do it now and, although it works, it's not the same thing.
My 2 cents.
http://thecaveats.net
I'm thinking Tonido is the best for this right now. I'll tell you why. Because like dropbox you can access your files remotely. It has a backup app plugin, so the syncing would take care there.
And for photos, which dropbox handles really well, Tonido also handles. It creates interactive photo gallery by auto-creation of thumbnails and a javascript based slideshow viewer. Includes ability to download full res, as well as a zip of the directory.
You can assign users to view and be able to download, to enable the sharing. It's pretty simple.
Now, if you had the right host, like a VPS, maybe you could load tonido, so it's an always on dropbox that you own. I dig it. I need to use it more. Unfortunately from work, I can't access my home box even with tonido because my work's network blocks acess to the port that tonido uses, like port 10000 something... you can look it up. But there's an iphone, android app.
I could say more. I need to blog about this probably just to reach out to a few others. I've purchased the pro plugins for it, because they were good, but if I had a tonido plug it would come with those.
...::----::...
I am in no way affiliated with this sig.
why do people keep saying -- "anybody concerned with security and privacy will most likely not touch it with a 10-foot pole."
... just as they would have to do if it was their own datacenter.
... in their own datacenters.
In ANY IaaS SP's architecture its up to the organization that utilizes that IaaS cloud to implement security
If you do a crappy job with firewall, access lists, user accounts/password mgmt etc in the IaaS cloud you would probably do the same crappy job in your own datacenter.
Over just the past few weeks there have been any number of company's that have been hacked
Poor security implementation no matter were its at always is susceptible to failure & breaches.
Now if some company say.. Dropbox... does a poor job implementing their security process/policies on AWS... its not AWS's fault for that it would be DropBox's responsiblity. Those servers in an IaaS are configured BY those customers NOT the IaaS Service Provider.
I've never understood why people consider running their own servers so hard; I certainly don't consider myself some hotshot admin (although I do have a bit more experience than most amateurs), and it's always seemed simple to me: get a business line with static IP (DSL or cable), setup a Debian box, lock it down with Bastille (or IPTables by hand at a minimum), and setup SSH+{rsync|git} or whatever suits your fancy (as long as the connection is encrypted and you use keys for auth). Seriously, what's so hard about this?
Nathan's blog
I suggest you look at the article today about Dropbox to get more understanding of my point above.
And I suggest you either try DropBox or ask somebody who has used it to get more understanding of my point. I also suggest you re-read what I already said so you understand the point I'm making instead of arguing against the one I'm not.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
You have no point, you are merely childishly disagreeing unless you consider passwordless access for all to supposedly private files to be a feature.
Show you are better than your recent posting history of stupid shit all over slashdot and provide some substance instead of the "try it" rubbish. List those features that make this product so wonderful that it offsets the pathetic and failed token attempt at security that is little better than anonymous FTP and far worse than plain FTP.
Even better, give up on this pathetic "yes it is, no it isn't" game here on this thread and instead sing the praises of Dropbox in the comments on todays article and see what people have to say about your idea there.
I think I know exactly why you are doing this but I have instead given you the benefit of the doubt and have decided to treat you like an adult and decided to make the assumption that it could actually be about Dropbox and not about argument for the sake of it. While all your posts on a variety of topics look like you are playing some childish game to provoke a response you may actually be serious but not applying much in the way of communication skills.
Go on then - make me "feel dumb", act like an adult and tell me why you are writing these posts with no content and a quick resort to insult. I'm sure it's for a better reason than to provide me with lunchtime entertainment and give me a smug sense of superiority.
If you are serious about the actual topic then act accordingly and post something to the current discussion to let everyone know why you think it's worth using despite the massive security flaws.
I have to admit instead that I can't help feeling superior and a degree of pity that you have such a need to get attention from an anonymous stranger but nothing of interest to write to get attention in this pointless exercise of masturbation of the ego. You got your long pointless thread despite having nothing to add to it so I congratulate you in getting whatever number of points you got in your little personal game. On my part it's been a way to spend time while eating at the computer so the attention you've received is no loss to myself.
You can be better than this.
I suggest finding something you are interested in and get to be good at it and you will no longer crave such empty attention.
Syncany!
http://www.syncany.org/
And the best: I has more features than ALL other dropbox-like programs - also more functionality than the commercial ones!
First real release is coming soon but you can use the source already to make it.
Ubuntu, a terminal, Python and Slashdot. Thats all you need.