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Backing up dropbox to smb with rclone

This article assumes that you already have rclone installed. If you do not, please refer to this article (article under contruction) to get this installed on your system

SMB Config

  1. From the terminal, launch rclone config to first set up your SMB target:
    1. Enter n to create a new remote
    2. Set a name, ie smbScreenshot from 2023-06-08 12-09-10.png
  2. On the storage selection, enter smb

    Screenshot from 2023-06-08 12-09-18.png

  3. Enter the smb server address (without your folder path) ie smb.grit.ucsb.edu

    Screenshot from 2023-06-08 12-09-26.png

  4. Enter your GRIT AD username

    Screenshot from 2023-06-08 12-09-37.png

  5. Under Option port, press enter to use the default port, then enter your GRIT AD password 

    Screenshot from 2023-06-08 12-10-01.png

  6. Set the domain as grit

    Screenshot from 2023-06-08 12-10-05.png

  7. Enter to skip the advanced config
  8. Enter y to save the smb config

Dropbox config

  1. Once you are back at the rclone config starting point, enter n again to create your dropbox remote.
  2. Repeat steps 1 and 2 from the SMB Config, setting a name and selecting dropbox as the storage this time
  3. Leave Option client_id and Option client_secret blank, then enter n to skip the advanced config

    Screenshot from 2023-06-08 12-07-52.png

  4. Next enter y to authenticate to dropbox - this will open a browser window to the Dropbox Login page. Enter your Dropbox credentials

    Screenshot from 2023-06-08 12-04-09.png


  5. Click Allow to complete this step 

    Screenshot from 2023-06-08 12-04-28.png

  6. Return to your terminal, and enter y to save this config, then q to quit out of the rclone config.
  7. Now you are ready to initiate your copy/sync from dropbox to your smb storage using the following command:
rclone -v -P copy dropbox: smb:yoursmbfoldername/subdirectory

The above example will copy everything from the root level of the dropbox storage configured to smb.grit.ucsb.edu/yoursmbfoldername/subdirectory. If you specify a sub-directory via the rclone command, this will be created automatically by rclone.