By matt81 on

Hi guys.
I have recently started using Drupal for the first time, and I am completely new to website design. I would like to know if it is possible to use Dropbox to sync my website so that I can move between my computer and laptop and keep working on it with no problems. I am using Acquia to run the website, and I have moved my Drupal folder to my dropbox folder and set it up with Acquia. The problem is, that when I create the database file, the file isnt stored in the Drupal folder inside Dropbox, right? So is it possible to sync the database file with Dropbox using symbolic links? Or does this cause any problems? If the database file or dropbox folder is stored in a different folder/drive on each computer, then could this cause any problems? For example, if the path to the file is stored within the file itself for some reason? I hope I've been clear enough. Thanks in advance for any help.

⋅ Categories: Drupal 7.x

Comments

matt81’s picture

matt81 commented

Oh, and where is the database file stored please? Cheers.

alexrayu’s picture

alexrayu commented

Hello Matt,

Your post is hilarious. It's like somebody is saying if they can use their van to carry WIFI signal between their home and their laptop. Here is how it works:

Drupal files are stored on the server (the codebase). You can access them by FTP. If you want to back them up you can download them, and zip. Or even better, learn how to zip them on the server with SSH and then download - and thus back up them.

Drupal database is not accessable directly. It's not a single file. Database is stored at the MySQL server, and can be exported as a single file. You need to use PHPMyAdmin to export it. Or, even better, install Backup and Migrate module to back it up as a single zipped file, and restore if necessary.

Dropbox is a user-level application, and it will not help you here. If you want to have your codebase and mysql database in sync with another instance of same codebase and database elsewhere, it is a quite complex solution. You should ask a question differently - "How do I keep in sync codebase and database for Drupal between two different servers?"

GDrupal’s picture

GDrupal commented

You can use http://drupal.org/project/backup_migrate to take a snapshot of your db, upload it to dropbox, then import again. It is the easy way to sync by files...but it is not the more professional way.

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G.A. Martin, Drupal Developer.

itsnav’s picture

itsnav commented

How about use the database in a private dropbox folder(since the communication is only going to happen between the db and the apache server, or public folder itself, its's read-only by outsiders anyways) and run a local server(Acquia perhaps, coz it runs mysqlserver and apache server) and leave one computer switched on, at all times. If we need to update it from a different computer. they simply need to run a different acquia client in a diff computer, pointing the db location and other files location to dropbox folder. It's not the best of all ideas, but I guess it's possible. Guys I'm just thinking of it in a theoritical way, please correct me if I am wrong.

I think it will work out because, we are not talking abt ftp access here, a local access redirection, is it not?