Backing up to Box.net account (webdav and Deja)

Question

I have a Box.net account and it's feeling neglected so I decided to place my backups there since it's bigger than my Ubuntu One storage.

When I try to set this up I get an error though.

I set it up like this:

• Backup location: WebDAV
• Server: www.box.com/dav
• Use https (yes)
• Port 443
• Folder: /Deja/ Username: [email address]

These are the same details used to add my box account as a server in nautilus (which worked) but this says "HTTP Error: Cannot resolve hostname (www.box.com/dav)" when I try to run a backup.

Any ideas?

Cheers,

James

Solution 1

I figured it out!

Under your storage tab...
Backup Location - WebDAV
Server - www.box.com
Check the HTTPS box
Port - 443
Folder - /dav/optionalsubdirectory
Username - optional

Solution 2

As a workaround you can use davfs2:

sudo apt-get install davfs2

Create a folder where you would like to mount the box.net "drive":

sudo mkdir /media/box.net

Test-mount box.net WebDAV

sudo mount -t davfs https://www.box.net/dav /media/box.net

Make it permanent:

sudo su
echo “https://www.box.net/dav username password” >> /etc/davfs2/secrets`

(username and password of course being your username/email-address and password respectively) NB: Yes, this is your password in plain text but it's visible only to sudoers.

Mount it on every start:

sudo su
gedit /etc/davfs2/davfs2.conf

change the dav_group davfs2 line to dav_group users

sudo gedit /etc/fstab

and insert

http://www.box.net/dav /media/box.net davfs rw,user,noauto 0 0

at the end. noauto is important. Otherwise the boot will hang.

Note that there are several other ways of accomplishing this, for example adding your user to the davfs2 group, having a secrets file just for the user in ~/.davfs2/secrets etc. but this one should work.

All in all I've found the box.net WebDAV support to be flaky at times.

Comments

[jimmygoska]

Just tried changing www.box.com/dav to just www.box.com and I get "Not a WebDAV-enabled share"

[thonixx]

I just updated my answer above ;)

[jimmygoska]

Awesome! I just got that set up and will now create a backup. Cheers!

[jimmygoska]

Probably off-topic but after setting this up (I wasn't actually able to use it as a backup location, there was an error regarding no permissions to create a directory) I restarted my computer and now it won't get past the splash screen. It doesn't freeze, it just sits there with dots going across. I tried booting recovery mode and the first thing it asks is for my username and password to my box account and then does nothing, hence my thinking it was related.

[David Guo]

Do you have noauto removed? This sounds serious.

[jimmygoska]

....i do..... would it help to boot to a liveusb, edit that file and reboot? I'm not home right now but i can try when i get home.

[David Guo]

Yes, removing the line from fstab will stop the wait. Try removing noauto first, this should be enough. If this doesn't work comment out the whole line.

[jimmygoska]

Awesome, putting noauto back in has fixed the issue and the computer has booted, cheers.

[Marc Bernstein]

Created an account just to comment that this worked for me. Nice job!