Synchronising SheepShaver to Dropbox

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TiddK
Granny Smith
Posts: 106
Joined: Wed Jan 27, 2016 12:25 pm

Synchronising SheepShaver to Dropbox

Post by TiddK »

I thought this would be fairly easy :
1. create a copy of my main work folder in SheepShaver & move it to 'Unix'
2. create a symlink of that in Shared/Unix and drop the symlink into Dropbox
3. keep the two folders in line using the OS 8.6 'File Synchronisation" control panel.

First, and biggest, difficulty : all methods of copying, duplicating, or attempting to move, the folder from SS to Unix, result in a COPY, and therefore all the Create/Modify Dates are changed to today, and synchronisation becomes impossible.

So I tried some trickery. I created an alias of the folder and copied the alias to Unix. I tried clicking the alias in Unix, and yes! it worked - it opened the folder in SS. So I created a symlink for the alias in Shared/Unix and moved that to Dropbox. That works too.
Sadly, I overlooked one vital thing : the symlink only points to the alias, not to the original folder. Dropbox therefore doesn't contain the contents of the folder, only the alias.

So... how can I ensure any changes to my work folder in SS are uploaded to Dropbox? If I could only get the folder duplicated from SS to Unix/Shared while preserving the metadata, that would be the easiest thing. But how?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Anyone??
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adespoton
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Re: Synchronising SheepShaver to Dropbox

Post by adespoton »

Sounds like you want to use AppleScript or a third party tool (MacRSync?) instead of finder copies.

Alternatively, you could create a WebDAV mount of your DropBox directly in 8.6 and use the file sync CP to sync between them.

The UNIX folder isn't really a standard folder, so it likely won't play nice with file sync no matter what you do, unless you write an applescript that sets all the metadata as well as copying the data and resource forks.

[edit]
Or, you can do what I do: just have a sparse bundle set up to mount in SheepShaver, and stick that sparsebundle in your Dropbox folder; that way, only the changes have to get updated, but you've got a backup of the entire disk image that you can restore to anywhere.
TiddK
Granny Smith
Posts: 106
Joined: Wed Jan 27, 2016 12:25 pm

Re: Synchronising SheepShaver to Dropbox

Post by TiddK »

adespoton wrote:Sounds like you want to use AppleScript or a third party tool (MacRSync?) instead of finder copies.

Alternatively, you could create a WebDAV mount of your DropBox directly in 8.6 and use the file sync CP to sync between them.

The UNIX folder isn't really a standard folder, so it likely won't play nice with file sync no matter what you do, unless you write an applescript that sets all the metadata as well as copying the data and resource forks.

[edit]
Or, you can do what I do: just have a sparse bundle set up to mount in SheepShaver, and stick that sparsebundle in your Dropbox folder; that way, only the changes have to get updated, but you've got a backup of the entire disk image that you can restore to anywhere.
The only bit I understood is the last bit, the edit! Ok, you're saying a sparsebundle in Dropbox to replace the MacOS86 disk I've got in the SheepShaver folder - would SS play with that, and if so, how?

And what would be the difference between that and creating a symlink to the MacOS86 "disk" I've already got in SS and then dropping the symlink into Dropbox? (I suppose if I made any changes the whole disk would automatically re-upload, but wouldn't the same thing apply to a sparsebundle? After all, Dropbox would simply see a change to the bundle when you close it, and the whole thing would then have to re-upload.)

The main problem with rsync is it only works in Unix, I couldn't use it to sync between SS/OS 8.6 and the Shared folder. What I may do is create two smaller disks for SS - one for each work folder - and use them only for those folders (which won't grow; they're archives really), and thus save on Dropbox upload time.

Edit: immediate problem; I've tried to "Create" two extra disks in Preferences. 1 55MB the other 33MB. SS creates them in its folder ok, but each time Mac OS 8.6 reaches the desktop it crashes. I grabbed Preferences to "Remove" the disks, then it didn't crash, but said it couldn't use the Unix folder as it couldn't find it. Only when I deleted the disks on the unix side did it work as before.
TiddK
Granny Smith
Posts: 106
Joined: Wed Jan 27, 2016 12:25 pm

Re: Synchronising SheepShaver to Dropbox

Post by TiddK »

In the end, the only way I could do it - after innumerable crashes and "can't find the Unix folder" messages - was

1) "Create" one extra disk (33MB), which had similar results as above
2) "Remove" the disk in Preferences
3) "Add" the disk back in Preferences
4) endure several more crashes/messages then I finally got the prompt to initialise the disk, and it's been fine since.

I've created a symlink to the new disk and dropped it into Dropbox which now has the disk, even if nothing in it can be read except in SheepShaver.
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