DropBox Like using Lsyncd

I have several notebooks that is connected to our File Server via OpenVPN, the problem is sometimes the connection from and to the server is slow and problematic, cannot browse files or takes to long to upload or download things, and the idea of DropBox like application or tool will eventually fix things around those problems.

I found this old link “How to build your own dropbox clone ” (link here) and gives me an idea on howtos.

The key tool is lsyncd (http://lsyncd.googlecode.com)

Lsyncd watches a local directory trees event monitor interface (inotify). It aggregates and combines events for a few seconds and then spawns one (or more) process(es) to synchronize the changes. By default this is rsync. Lsyncd is thus a light-weight live mirror solution that is comparatively easy to install not requiring new filesystems or blockdevices and does not hamper local filesystem performance.

Here’s  the details:

1.  From you current Ubuntu Desktop, install rsync and other necessary packages.

$> apt-get install rsync libxml2-dev build-essential lua5.1

2. Then download the lsyncd souce code and compile.

$> wget http://lsyncd.googlecode.com/files/lsyncd-2.0.4.tar.gz
$> tar xvfz  lsyncd-2.0.4.tar.gz
$> cd lsyncd-2.0.4 $> sudo -s
#> ./configure 
#> make; make install

3. Then create a configuration file in your $HOME/.config/lsyncd path called lsyncd.lua

$> mkdir -p  ~/.config/lsyncd
$> vi ~/.config/lsyncd/lsyncd.lua

4.  The content as follows:

sync{default.rsyncssh, source="/home/username/mybox", host="server.localdomain", targetdir="mybox/", rsyncOps="-ltus"}

5.  Save the file, and before the sync test, make sure you have a passwordless ssh session to the given host, if not, follow this steps:

On your Desktop/client:

$> ssh-keygen -N '' -f  ~/.ssh/id_dsa

On paraphrase prompt, just press ENTER, then the following (note: REMOTE_SERVER is the ssh server host)

$>  cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub | ssh REMOTE_SERVER 'cat - >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys2' $> ssh REMOTE_SERVER 'chmod 700 .ssh' 

Then have a test

$> ssh REMOTE_SERVER

6. When all are successfully done, create your preferred name for the sync folder, mine.. I just called it “mybox”. It should have the path as follows:

/home/username/mybox
server.mydomain.local:~/mybox

7.  All are set and ready to go, test the lsyncd.

$> lsyncd -nodaemon ~/.config/lsycnd/lsycnd.lua

8. Populate the local folder and watch the remote ssh server for changes.

9. Done.

Note: This is currently a definitely Linux workaround, haven’t tried it in other OS (using cygwin on Windows).