This brief post is going to show students and new users how to 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:

Install Dropbox on Ubuntu

Before getting the backup process to work, you must download and install Dropbox. run the commands below to download Dropbox 64-bit package for 64-bit systems. The 32-bit version of the package can be found below After downloading the package, run the commands below to extract. After extracting the downloaded package, run the commands below to move the content to a location in the /opt/dropbox directory. Next, run the commands below to allow dropbox to authenticate the server This should launch a dropbox script to allow you to authenticate the servers. you should begin to see links on the screen to select and paste into your web browser. then click Connect button to log on to dropbox and authenticate. after that, the server will be allowed to upload and download content from your Dropbox account. Click Connect

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 Then copy the content below and paste it into the file. 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.

Backing Up to Dropbox

At this stage, Dropbox is installed and a folder called Dropbox is 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 back up 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 is created in the /var/www/html will automatically be backed-up to Dropbox. Enjoy!~ You may also like the post below: