Dropbox - two unrelated questions

[Stuart_C]

So a couple of questions regarding this product.

 

Someone has suggested using it to share some of their files. Just ignoring any other issues for the moment is is possibly to set the sync folder to a network location. When I tried it dropbox told me I couldn't. Is there a way round that? (or hopefully not).

 

Second. I've got a Smoothwall acting as an authenticating proxy on my Accademic network and routher and transparent proxy for my wireless network. After following smoothwall's KB it works on my accademic network, it works on my iphone on the wireless. Yet it won't work on two seperate machines also on the wireless. Says "Can't establish a secure connection". Local firewalls don't seem to be an issue. One's a MAC and one's a PC. Logging on the smoothwall doens't show it being blcoked as far as I can see so I'm kind of stumped

 

Help.

[Dos_Box]

Moving to Cloud Services forum.

[featured_spectre]

You can't link an entire drive to dropbox...only folders. So make a folder on the drive and all should be well.

 

As for smoothwall...no idea

[Marci]

"Can't establish a secure connection" = https / port 443. Using anything to redirect 443 over 80 or similar within Smoothwall or ISA or similar? Think we ended up whitelisting Dropbox even tho it wasn't showing as being blocked.

 

Hosting Dropbox folder on a share - nope. BUT, if server admins are ok with it, they can install the dropbox client on the server that hosts the share, with the client signed in as you running as a service from commandline.

[Naughty_Nigel]

You can put Dropbox almost anywhere, including shared volumes on a file server. However, for reasons that are not clear to me at present, changes and additions made to files in the server Dropbox folder via the network are not seen anywhere else, (although changes made on the server, or via Remote Desktop are seen).

 

Put another way, you can access files in a Dropbox folder on a server across the network, but if you change those files they don't get changed anywhere else.

 

I don't know whether this is a deliberate limitation intended to stop people from using Dropbox for commercial applications, or whether it is just a limitation of the software.

 

So, if you want to use Dropbox on a network it must be the network.

[Marci]

Got a server here running 12 instances of the client as different users, and I can update/modify/create/delete over LAN from any device, and the changes are reflected perfectly across all devices signed in with those IDs whether also on the LAN or otherwise... and vice versa.

 

Edit: basically used the method here: http://www.techtipsgeek.com/run-multiple-instances-dropbox-windows-7-vista/10831/ ... shortcuts run on startup, server has to be logged in then locked. Can be made to run as service on boot tho, just never got round to it. He's simplified the procedure now tho fortunately - not tried this method yet: http://www.techtipsgeek.com/easiest-way-run-multiple-instances-dropbox-windows-7/10971/

Edited August 2, 2012 by Marci

[Naughty_Nigel]

Got a server here running 12 instances of the client as different users, and I can update/modify/create/delete over LAN from any device, and the changes are reflected perfectly across all devices signed in with those IDs whether also on the LAN or otherwise... and vice versa.

 

Edit: basically used the method here: Run Multiple Instances of Dropbox in Windows 7 and Vista ... shortcuts run on startup, server has to be logged in then locked. Can be made to run as service on boot tho, just never got round to it. He's simplified the procedure now tho fortunately - not tried this method yet: Easiest Way To Run Multiple Instances of Dropbox in Windows7

 

Thank you for sharing that information. I have tried it twice (on two differernt servers) and it ddn't work, so I will try your method.

 

Also, do you know whether it is possible to re-name the Dropbox folder so it can represent an existing folder which is shared on the network?