openmediavault-dropbox-backup

A plugin for OpenMediaVault 7.x that backs up your Dropbox contents to a local folder on your NAS.

Features

• One-way sync: Backs up Dropbox to local storage (Dropbox → OMV)
• OAuth authentication: Uses rclone's built-in Dropbox OAuth (no app registration needed)
• Selective sync: Back up entire Dropbox or specific folders
• Scheduled backups: Manual, hourly, daily, or weekly backup options
• Web UI: Configure everything from the OMV web interface

Requirements

• OpenMediaVault 7.x or later
• rclone (automatically installed as dependency)

Installation

From .deb package

# Build the package
dpkg-buildpackage -b -us -uc

# Install
sudo dpkg -i ../openmediavault-dropbox-backup_1.0.0_all.deb
sudo apt-get install -f  # Install any missing dependencies

Manual installation

1. Copy files to their destinations on your OMV server
2. Run omv-mkworkbench all to rebuild the web interface
3. Restart the OMV engine: systemctl restart openmediavault-engined

Configuration

Step 1: Link your Dropbox account

Before using the plugin, you need to configure rclone with your Dropbox account:

# On the OMV server, run:
rclone config

# Follow the prompts:
# - Choose 'n' for new remote
# - Name it 'dropbox' (must be exactly this name)
# - Choose 'dropbox' as the storage type
# - Leave client_id and client_secret empty (use rclone's)
# - Follow the OAuth flow in your browser

Step 2: Configure the plugin

1. Go to Services → Dropbox Backup in the OMV web interface
2. Enable the service
3. Select a destination shared folder
4. Optionally specify a Dropbox path to sync (default: entire Dropbox)
5. Set your preferred backup schedule
6. Click Save

Step 3: Run a backup

Click "Run Backup Now" to start an immediate backup, or wait for the scheduled backup to run.

Advanced Options

You can pass additional rclone options in the "Extra rclone Options" field:

• --bwlimit 1M - Limit bandwidth to 1 MB/s
• --exclude "*.tmp" - Exclude temporary files
• --dry-run - Test without making changes

Logs

Backup logs are written to syslog. View them with:

journalctl -t omv-dropbox-backup

Or check the status file:

cat /var/lib/openmediavault/dropbox-backup-status.json

Uninstallation

sudo apt-get remove openmediavault-dropbox-backup
# To also remove configuration:
sudo apt-get purge openmediavault-dropbox-backup

Development

Project Structure

openmediavault-dropbox-backup/
├── debian/                          # Debian packaging
├── etc/systemd/system/              # Systemd service and timer
├── usr/
│   ├── sbin/
│   │   └── omv-dropbox-backup       # Backup script
│   └── share/openmediavault/
│       ├── datamodels/              # Configuration schema
│       ├── engined/
│       │   ├── module/              # Service module
│       │   └── rpc/                 # RPC backend
│       └── workbench/               # Web UI (YAML)
└── README.md

Building

dpkg-buildpackage -b -us -uc

License

GPL-3.0

Credits

• Original plugin by Lorenzo Dieryckx (2013)
• Modernized for OMV 7.x by Gabrael Burke (2024)