dropbox client for Synology NAS

Dropbox is a cloud storage provider. Synology builds modern home NAS. Synology’s NAS features can be extended by using plugins. Until now I missed a plugin for connecting Dropbox.

There are 2 developers. Jonathan Poland has created Synology-plugin Synobox, which is available in version 0.4.6 as spk-package for download.

This early version doesn’t support Unicode (non English characters) and is only a one way synchronzation from dropbox to Synology at the moment. I asked the developer about these features but he said that time is limited because of his job.

Christian Bourgeois created a branch recently. He’s working on the missing features and it’s still work in progress. Advanced user with knowledge of version control systems und Python might want tocreate a package by themselves.

Here are some notes for people who want to try out the early version…

First of all you’ll need a Dropbox-account. After that you have to become an app developer by clicking “create an app”. Choose an unique app namelike “synobox_user0815” select “app folder” for access level. Press “create”. You may customize the “name of app folder”. Please note the values for “App key” and “App secret and press “update”.

Login to your Synology GUI called DSM by using a browser, use URL http://192.168.x.x:5000/webman/index.cgi (customize IP-address!). Install and start package Python which is provided by Synology.

Download, upload to DSM and install package Synobox.

Create a shared folder, e.g. “dropbox”. User “guest” has to be granted write permissions. Start ssh daemon.

Login as user “root” via ssh client (same password as DSM user admin). Change to Synobox installation folder by typing “cd /usr/syno/synoman/webman/3rdparty/SynoBox”. Change permissions for files by “chmod 666 cfg.ini” and “chmod 666 sbx.log”. Edit config file using editor vi “vi cfg.ini”. example:

PYTHON=/usr/bin/python
[UI]
UI_FOLDER=/volume1/dropbox
UI_APP_KEY=abcdefghijk
UI_APP_SECRET=abcdefghijk

Fill in correct values and save the file. After that start URL and press “authorize”: http://192.168.x.x:5000/webman/3rdparty/SynoBox/index.cgi (customize IP-address of NAS!). A subfolder will be created in folder Apps at Dropbox.

Start Synobox plugin.

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