Mounting my enterprise dropbox that has spaces in the dir name as ~/Dropbox in fstab works, but then it uses double the diskspace! Can you avoid this?

[emilbebri]

Hi,

So I got a dropbox paid by my job, but it’s mounted as

/home/emil/Dropbox (CBS)

I can’t use a directory with spaces, introduces too many issues working with linux. Stupidly, this cannot be changed in the Dropbox application settings.

So In my /etc/fstab, I’ve mounted it to

/home/emil/Dropbox

like this in fstab:

/home/emil/Dropbox\040(CBS) /home/emil/Dropbox none bind 0 0

This has been working great for about a year now. However, It seems that this solution means that it uses 2x the amount of harddrive space! This is not longterm sustainable, as the amount of projects in my dropbox grows.

Is there a way to remove the ‘/home/emil/Dropbox (CBS)’ path and only keep the sensible path? Or is there a way of mounting it that does not double the amount of space used? Of course, I could symlink instead, but I’m afraid that might introduce unwanted issues.

thank you for you time,

[Mirdarthos]

Hi @emilbebri,

While I have no idea how to configure/remove a setting in fstab it seems like a cache of some sorts, to reduce internet usage.

Instead of using fstab, try using systemd. It’s quite easy to set up:

[root tip] [How To] Use systemd to mount ANY device

Difficulty: ★☆☆☆☆ Disk device recognition Manjaro uses udev (see Arch Wiki) to load devices at boot time. The loading of devices is arbitrary and therefore you cannot predict which device will be available at a given path. But static device names do exist and you can assign specific locations to your device and thus ensure e.g. scripts will work as expected. What to learn Overview of system mount units Structure and Content of a mount unit Mount at boot (immediate mount) Mount on demand (m…

[root tip] [How To] systemd mount unit samples

Difficulty: ★★☆☆☆ Example mount units for systemd The examples here are a supplement to the guide on systemd mount units Remember to remove the comments placed in the units - they are not writting for copy-paste but as examples. (comments is text beginning with a #) [root tip] Use systemd to mount ANY device Only use an automount unit if the device is not readily available at boot like removable devices and network locations. Important rule Fo…

I suspect you’ll want a fuse mount.

Also see:

GitHub - joeroback/dropbox: systemd service file for headless dropbox

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/dropbox

Else, try mounting it with rclone:

rclone mount

I use rclone and have used rclone mount with dropbox perfectly in the past.

Hope this helps!

Edit:

Just read you post followed by @Aragorn’s answer. And it seems like I completely misunderstood you, so what he said.

[Aragorn]

@emilbebri

This has been working great for about a year now. However, It seems that this solution means that it uses 2x the amount of harddrive space!

No, it doesn’t. It just offers the data at two different locations, but there’s no duplication.

[maycne.sonahoz]

@emilbebri

Of course, I could symlink instead, but I’m afraid that might introduce unwanted issues.

What kind of issues do you have in mind?
AFAIK the result would be overall the same: you’d access one folder through the bind or the symbolic link; file paths would be valid the same way.

[emilbebri]

@Aragorn & @Mirdarthos : I don’t think you’re right - see here, when I use baobab to calculate disk space, the amount of used space adds up when I include both Dropbox and the mounted Dropbox (CBS) [ column 1 in the spreadsheet], but it does not when I exclude one of them [column 2]. This can only be explained by both folders taking up space, right? Or am I missing something?

[emilbebri]

@maycne.sonahoz :
There has been a lot of discussion about symbolic links and hardlinks on the dropbox forums, like here. I couldn’t find anyone that had been using a symlink like in my use case for years and could vouch for it, so mounting it seemed like the safest option (can’t find the thread for that, this was 1 year ago and can’t remember which forum)

[maycne.sonahoz]

@emilbebri

This can only be explained by both folders taking up space, right? Or am I missing something?

Baobab seemingly does not differenciate bind mounts from the file system it’s scanning. The following more accurately shows how much space is used in all your mounted partitions:

df -h

Mounting is simply a way to access a directory structure, wherever it is, from a mount point. Space is only consumed once: where that structure is stored to begin with.

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Essentially, Dropbox support recommended that I could simply move (rename) my “Dropbox (Team UiS)” folder to “Dropbox” folder, and symlink in the reverse direction. This resulted in stopped syncing.

I did expect that Dropbox may fail this way. This is why i suggested to make the link in the opposite direction.

[emilbebri]

ah Ok thank you for the clarification.

So I might as well keep my bind mount, right? Or would you recommend a symlink instead, and if so why? (just to learn and get better at understanding the differences between the two)