SparkleShare – Your private Dropbox on OSX

Yesterday I came across a promising new project called SparkleShare.

SparkleShare is some sort of a Dropbox clone that allows you to use GIT repositories on your server.

This means that your data can be stored on your private server!

The project is still in its very early stages and the setup is a bit complicated.

But I somehow managed to get it to work on my Macs at home.

Here is how I did it:

Preparation

• Download GIT from here
• Download SparkleShare from here

 

Install the server

Install GIT on the server

Create an empty GIT container

> cd (to make sure you are in your home folder)

> git init –bare TEST.git

 

Install the client

• Install GIT on the client
• Install SparkleShare
• try to ssh into the server

>ssh YOURNAME@MY.SERVER.COM

If this does not connect you have to find out why first,
this is the very basics to make this work.

• Create the SSH keys

> ssh-keygen

> scp .ssh/id_rsa.pub YOURNAME@MY.SERVER.COM:TEMP_rsa.pub

• SSH into your server

> ssh YOURNAME@MY.SERVER.COM

> cat TEMP_rsa.pub >> .ssh/authorized_keys

• Check git install on the server – try to run

> ssh YOURNAME@MY.SERVER.COM git-upload-pack –help

If you get:

> usage: git upload-pack [--strict] [--timeout=nn]

you’re OK

 

If you get:

> git-upload-pack: command not found

you have to create a symlink to the git executables for “non-interactive shell login”

> cd /usr/bin/
>sudo ln -s /usr/local/git/bin/git* .

retry the above command

you can also try the following (even though it did not work for me)
> export PATH=$PATH:”/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/git/bin”

• Now launch SparkleShare Enter your name and e-mail, click next.

Server Type:
“My own Server”

Address:
YOURNAME@MY.SERVER.COM

Folder Name:
/Users/YOURNAME/TEST.git

• Click Sync

 

General remarks:

• YOURNAME: this is the username on your Mac (Server Side!)
• MY.SERVER.COM: this is the name of the server (can be internal, like server.local or URL)