Update different dropbox instances

Question

I am using dropbox on my redhat linux kernel. Right now we have a dummy user set up, with it's own dropbox account. Everyone can access and dump their files into it while on the machine and then everyone has access to the share folder, for when they are not on the machine. This is in no way optimal but no one wanted to give up any space on their own dropbox accounts and I am working with what I am given.

Right now, when I update my own dropbox account I use: ~/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd.

I do this only when I know that I have actually put something different in my folder. This really won't work for the dummy account because I don't know when it is updated and I can't trust anyone else to actually go through with it. I REALLY don't want to have to log in as this dummy user everyday and update it.

My question is: Is there a way to automatically have dropbox update (i.e. I don't have to log in everyday, multiple times a day to make sure the dropbox is up to date)?

Answer 1

Why not setup multiple instances of dropbox? I have 2 dropbox accounts which I've setup like so:

$ ls -l ~/Dropbox
drwxrwxr-x 10 saml saml 4096 Nov 30 22:21 personal
drwxrwxr-x 10 saml saml 4096 Dec  7 15:49 work

Inside each of those directories is a Dropbox folder:

$ ls -l personal/ work/
personal/:
drwxrwxr-x 10 saml saml 4096 Nov 30 22:21 .
drwxrwxr-x  4 saml saml 4096 Dec 14 20:49 ..
drwx------  3 saml saml 4096 Nov 30 22:20 .cache
drwxrwxr-x 19 saml saml 4096 Mar 19 11:30 .ccache
drwx------  4 saml saml 4096 Nov 30 22:23 .config
drwx------  3 saml saml 4096 May 15 11:00 .dropbox
drwx------ 17 saml saml 4096 May  8 22:13 Dropbox
drwx------  3 saml saml 4096 Nov 30 22:21 .kde
drwxrwxr-x  3 saml saml 4096 Nov 30 22:20 .local
drwx------  3 saml saml 4096 Nov 30 22:20 .pki

work/:
drwxrwxr-x 10 saml saml 4096 Dec  7 15:49 .
drwxrwxr-x  4 saml saml 4096 Dec 14 20:49 ..
drwx------  3 saml saml 4096 Dec  7 15:49 .cache
drwxrwxr-x 18 saml saml 4096 Feb  5 10:03 .ccache
drwx------  4 saml saml 4096 Dec  8 22:18 .config
drwx------  3 saml saml 4096 May  8 22:13 .dropbox
drwx------  5 saml saml 4096 May  8 22:13 Dropbox
drwx------  3 saml saml 4096 Dec  7 15:49 .kde
drwxrwxr-x  3 saml saml 4096 Dec  7 15:49 .local
drwx------  3 saml saml 4096 Dec  7 15:49 .pki

My content is inside the Dropbox folders for the 2 accounts. I then use this script to start up my dropbox applets.

#!/bin/bash

dropboxes="personal work"
for dropbox in $dropboxes
do
    HOME="/home/$USER"
    DROPHOME="$HOME/Dropbox"
    if ! [ -d "$DROPHOME/$dropbox" ]
    then
        mkdir "$DROPHOME/$dropbox" 2> /dev/null
        ln -s "$HOME/.Xauthority" "$DROPHOME/$dropbox/" 2> /dev/null
    fi
    HOME="$DROPHOME/$dropbox"
    /home/$USER/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd 2> /dev/null &
done

This script is launched from the GNOME Startup Applications tool. The script is called dropbox.sh.

      

I setup the Startup Application so that it runs this command:

bash -c "sleep 60 && dropbox.sh"

This gives the network a minute to come up before starting Dropbox.

It's a little weird at first but you get used to seeing 2 dropbox icons in your taskbar.