Looking for an easy way to backup your Ubuntu 16.04 LTS servers files to Dropbox? These can be your website content, important configuration files and others important files you can’t afford to lose. this process backs them all automatically to Dropbox.
This brief post is going to show students and new users how install and configure Dropbox on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Servers (headless) to automatically back up important configuration files and website content. this process can be an affordable way to get your content secured.
To get started with backing up your files via Dropbox, continue with the steps below:
Step 1: Install Dropbox on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
Before getting the back up process to work, you must download and install Dropbox. run the commands below to download Dropbox 64-bit package for 64-bit systems.
cd /tmp && wget -O dropbox-linux.tar.gz
The 32-bit version of the package can be found below
cd /tmp && wget -O dropbox-linux.tar.gz
After downloading the package, run the commands below to extract.
tar xvf dropbox-linux.tar.gz
After extracting the downloaded package, run the commands below to move the content to a location in the /opt/dropbox directory.
sudo mv .dropbox-dist /opt/dropbox
Next, run the commands below to allow dropbox to authenticate the server
/opt/dropbox/dropboxd
This should launch dropbox script to allow you to authentication the servers. you should begin to see links on the screen to select and paste into your web browser. then click Connect button to logon to dropbox and authenticate. after that, the server will be allowed to upload and download content from your Dropbox account.
This computer isn't linked to any Dropbox account. Please visit to link this device. This computer isn't linked to any Dropbox account. Please visit to link this device. This computer isn't linked to any Dropbox account. Please visit to link this device. This computer isn't linked to any Dropbox account. Please visit to link this device. This computer isn't linked to any Dropbox account. Please visit to link this device.
Click Connect
Step 2: Create Dropbox Service
Dropbox is installed and ready to use. however, it would be easier to manage if it was a service account. to create a Dropbox service account, run the commands below
sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/dropbox.service
Then copy the content below and paste into the file.
[Unit]
Description=Dropbox
After=network.target
[Service]
Type=simple
User=your_ubuntu_user_name_here
ExecStart=/opt/dropbox/dropboxd
ExecStop=/bin/kill -HUP $MAINPID
Restart=always
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Save the file and exit.
Now you should be able to run the commands below to stop, start and enable Dropbox to automatically start up when the server starts.
sudo systemctl stop dropbox.service sudo systemctl start dropbox.service sudo systemctl enable dropbox.service
Step 3: Backing Up to DropBox
At this stage, Dropbox is installed and a folder called Dropbox created in your home directory. When you back to automatically backup content, place the content in ~/Dropbox folder in your home directory and it should be backed-up to Dropbox.
You can also create symbolic links to backup directories and files. for example, to backup the entire document root for Apache2 and Nginx, (/var/www/html/) you can run the commands below
ln -s /var/www/html ~/Dropbox
You can do this for any file and directory. Everything that are created in the /var/www/html will automatically be backed-up to Dropbox.
Enjoy!~
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