Owncloud as a share?

[nick779]

So I may have a silly question, is it possible to have Owncloud set up so that it stores files and data in a windows share that can be accessed also written to?

For instance I want to be able to use it to sync files from a folder, and I want that folder to be accessible through CIFS, and not through the Owncloud console.

I tried this by creating a test dataset called storage and mapped it to the jail, then mapped it as the storage location of my user. I tried copying things through the CIFS side and the OWN cloud side and nothing is visible. Im not sure if it was configured correctly though.

 

[cyberjock]

Owncloud keeps its own database of the files it owns. So if you start putting files in, taking files out, or editing files you'll totally fubar Owncloud because it won't have a clue what the real condition of the data is. In short, if you want a CIFs share, then use a CIFS share. If you want to sync data from a workstation or workstations to a server, use Owncloud. Don't try to do the best of both as there is no "best". ;)

 

[nick779]

Is it possible to have one one cloud server sync/replicate to another? Or would you just replicate the entire jail to the other server?

Basically I want to have some redundancy and with cifs/replication is easy, but I'm curious about onecloud and syncing folders etc

 

[cyberjock]

Is it possible to have one one cloud server sync/replicate to another? Or would you just replicate the entire jail to the other server?

Not really. I use Owncloud at home myself. There's some unfortunate news with owncloud. No clue if it's user configuration error or what, but here's what I do..

Daily snapshots of Owncloud jail.
<some time passes and I fiddle with some knob in Owncloud I shouldn't have touched>
<oops.. I broke my Owncloud jail>
<no problem..>
<shuts down the Owncloud jail>
<rolls back to the previous snapshot>
<starts the Owncloud jail>

The problem? The client machines are AFU compared to the jail. The client machines get "out of sync" with the server somehow and the problems don't correct themselves. I have no clue why and no clue how to fix it short of taking a drastic measure of moving all of the data on my Owncloud client locally on one of my machines, deleting my Owncloud account, create a new one, then move the data to the "new" Owncloud account and let it all resync. Then I go to my other machines and sync those up to the new Owncloud account. It sucks, which is why I don't mess with what isn't broken. ;)

If I know I'm going to be doing things with Owncloud I shutdown all of my clients and the jail, do a snapshot, then start the jail and do my Owncloud upgrade (or whatever I want to do) and once everything looks okay in the Owncloud WebGUI I start my clients again. If things go badly then I roll back to the jail snapshot. This prevents my Owncloud clients and Owncloud server from getting out of sync while protecting me from screwups like failed Owncloud upgrades.