Configuring Dropbox on an Ubuntu Server – Pt 2

In Part 1 I clarified a few points on the Dropbox tutorial for getting the server running on a headless Linux server and while I had it running it was ‘locked’ to an ssh session, i.e. close the session and the Dropbox server also stopped. The same tutorial provides links to sample init.d files which can be used to start the Dropbox server on boot. This works well enough but there were a couple of things that, again, could have done with a bit more detail.

Configuring Dropbox on an Ubuntu Server – Pt 1

If you’ve been reading any of my recent posts you will know that I have been moving from a shared server host to a virtual private server and that I have also experienced issues with my backups. Well with the blog configured and running well the migration was almost complete, but what about backing up my data? I’d already seen how easy it was to run into problems so this time I wanted to be a little bit more in control and not just blindly rely on third party plugins. I was keen to use Dropbox but was unsure about installing and configuring it on a headless Ubuntu Server. As it happens it was not really that difficult to get it up and running.

Configuring vsftp on Ubuntu Server 10.04 LTS

So my move from shared hosting to virtual private server (VPS) was going well so far – I’d moved this blog across and wired up Exim4 to handling all my emailing needs. Then yesterday I saw an interesting article on Lifehacker about the MobilePress plugin for WordPress which rendered the blog in a format more suitable for mobile devices. Excellent, I thought – I’ll have that! That’s when I found out that the blog itself was not as ready as I thought it was – the fact was I could not install any plugins due to the lack of an FTP server on my VPS – so my next job was to resolve that!

Migrating Blog to Virtual Private Server with Exim4 email support

In my previous post I explained that I was migrating this blog from a shared server provided by 5quidhosting onto a virtual private server (VPS) provided by BHost. In theory this should have been quite straightforward but in practice, and bearing in mind I’m a developer and not an infrastructure boffin, there was a lot more to is that just moving zip files around and running a few commands.

Moving from Shared Hosting to a Virtual Private Server

Until recently I have been hosting this blog, and a few other sites and proof of concepts, using a reseller account provided by 5quidhosting costing, well £5. Now before I continue I should say that I have been very happy with the service they have provided me over the past two years or so and have no hesitation in recommending them for standard hosting services. The server performance was good and on the few times I needed to contact support their response was prompt and efficient. So, why have I moved this blog? Well, it’s all about access, or more accurately the lack of it.

I am of course talking about SSH access which was not provided on the 5quidhosting servers due to previous hack attempts. This is fair enough, most users will have no need for this level of access – indeed neither did I for two years.