How do I change the Dropbox directory on a headless GNU/Linux server?
- by DrTwox
I have installed Dropbox 2.0.0 via command line on my home server (Ubuntu Server 12.04) to use for off-site automated backups, but I can't change the directory that the Dropbox daemon keeps synced.
I've tried the following:
The official docs say to use the desktop application, which is not applicable in my situation. However I installed the desktop app on my desktop machine and changed the default folder location, but I can't find where this change is stored in the ~/.dropbox/ directory so I can make the same change on the server.
This page (and several others) recommends a Python script to do the job. Looking at the script, it opens a SQLite database called ~/.dropbox/dropbox.db, which does not exist on my Dropbox install, leading me to believe the script is out-of-date.
This forum thread suggests manually inserting the required row in the config.db database, which I did, but it made no difference. I checked the same database file on my desktop machine, and it does not have the dropbox_path key, so I'm presuming the information in that thread is also out of date for version 2.0.
I have tried to launch the Dropbox GUI configuration wizard over SSH with X11 forwarding, as suggested in one of the answers, but the binary must detect the absence of a local X11 install and it starts a command line daemon instead, which provides no means to change the option I need.
I am currently using a symlink, as suggested as an answer, but this is a kludge. I would like to know the correct way to make the change.
How do I change the Dropbox directory on a headless GNU/Linux server?
Update: I've ditched Dropbox and started using Copy. Their Linux tools and support is far superior to Dropbox. I leave this question here in case someone, someday, can answer it.
