I use Dropbox daily. It's a great service - it allows me to keep my development environment the same wherever I go, and is a great tool for backing up data.
However, recently I found another use for it. If you manage a Linux VPS and install Dropbox, you've got yourself an all-in-one backup and (fairly secure) remote management of the server's file system.
So here's what I did:
- I installed the command line version of Dropbox onto my VPS using these instructions: http://wiki.dropbox.com/TipsAndTricks/TextBasedLinuxInstall
- I created various symbolic links to certain folders on my server's filesystem inside the Dropbox folder
- Shared the top level folder with my main Dropbox account
Image may be NSFW.
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It's as simple as that. I've also done this with a large PHP project I'm working on - and it allows multiple collaborators to have local versions of folders that then get synced with "the cloud" — and of course your server.
Another thing I've done is added database backups on cron that also get added to the Dropbox folder. This means that when I wake up there is a tar.gz backup of all of my MySQL databases and nginx log files, automagically added to my Dropbox folder.
Image may be NSFW.
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