Symlink from Dropbox to External Directory Share

Question

So, I've been messing around with this for a while, and only found certain ways to do it but none of which are what I am looking for (not even sure I can do what I want).

I have a shared directory on my linux machine. Each morning, a script runs via cron updating a file in this directory. Now I can mount this shared directory on my windows 2008 or my Mac. I can then create a symlink from the mounted share, to a directory in Dropbox (the idea is this file will automatically update each morning on dropbox). However, I must have the user logged in for the share to update, since the link doesn't exist without the user logged in (or it seems to be that way)..

Is there a way of mounting my external share from linux onto dropbox, such that any user on any PC can see this 'linked directory' on dropbox and see it update when it updates on the linux server without someone somewhere specifically having to be logged in? My linux machine runs tasks via cron without anyone having to be logged in, surely I can mount a file to dropbox in a similar (logical) way.

Thank you in advance for any suggestions.

Answer 1

Dropbox works great for me with Symlink to a 2nd drive. Using this same concept, you could easily symlink to also sync the Desktop folder (or a smb/nfs/ftp drive):

me@ubuntu:~$ df -k | grep /dev/sd
/dev/sda2      229184876  19837764 197635472  10% /
/dev/sdc1      960379920 639242420 272283076  71% /mnt/SDC
/dev/sdb1      960379920 164266384 747259112  19% /mnt/SDB
/dev/sda1         523248      4744    518504   1% /boot/efi
me@ubuntu:~$ ls -al /mnt/SDB/Dropbox
total 576
drwx------ 10 me me   4096 Sep 11 22:43  .
drwx------  5 me me   4096 Sep  8 18:17  ..
drwxrwxr-x  2 me me   4096 Sep 12 08:49 'Camera Uploads'
-rwxrwxr-x  1 me me     34 Sep  8 13:16  .dropbox
drwxrwxr-x  4 me me 516096 Sep 12 08:49  .dropbox.cache
drwxrwxr-x  9 me me   4096 Sep 11 22:39  Jon-Files
drwxrwxr-x 12 me me   4096 Sep  9 14:28  JON-Photos
lrwxrwxrwx  1 me me     14 Sep  8 18:37  SDC-LINK -> /mnt/SDC/MEDIA
me@ubuntu:~$ ls -al /mnt/SDC/MEDIA
total 80
drwxr-xr-x  10 me me 4096 Sep  9 18:12 .
drwx------   4 me me 4096 Sep  8 18:38 ..
drwxrwxr-x   4 me me 4096 Sep  9 18:12 Books
drwxrwxr-x   9 me me 4096 Sep  9 18:12 MOVIES