[Owncloud] Mounting External Storage

[Michael Gapczynski]

On Monday, February 20, 2012 10:48:03 PM Michael Grosser wrote:

On Feb 20, 2012 10:42 PM, "Frank Karlitschek" <karlitschek at kde.org> wrote:
>
>
> On 20.02.2012, at 22:11, Michael Gapczynski <mtgap at owncloud.com> wrote:
>
> > I've been thinking about mounting external storage to ownCloud and I've 
had a
> > few discussions with Robin about it. Now I'm looking for some feedback 
from
> > the community.
>
> Cool :-)
>
>
> > The general idea is to add support for mounting FTP and SMB to use as 
storage.
> > Writing a backend with PHP is possible for these, but they won't perform 
as
> > well as the native OS implementations. I think the best solution would be 
to
> > recommend to sys admins to mount natively and provide a fallback to a PHP
> > backend if this isn't possible.
>
> Yes. Protocols that are better supported by the OS should be handled by the 
OS.
> We could still try to do a mount command and see what happens :-)
>
>
> > The other thing I need feedback on is deciding if normal users can mount
> > external storage. I see the need for enabling users to link ownCloud to
> > services such as Dropbox, and Google Docs (Google Drive),
i think mounting gdocs, dropbox etc. we should use mounting them as 
unhosted/remote storage so unhosted and owncloud won't solve the proxy problem 
in two projects.
but I'm not sure if
> > FTP and SMB should fit in with these. I'm also debating what is the best 
way
> > to integrate these into the filesystem. The simple way would be to mount 
it as
> > a directory and each service would be self contained. However, I can also
> > invision having the files from Dropbox and Google Docs showing up in the 
root
> > of the filesystem with an indicator of their respective external 
locations.
> > During the upload or file creation process the user would be presented 
with a
> > choice of where to store the file. This feels more natural to me than a
> > directory system and could prevent problems with locating files.
>
> Hmm. I would use the OS tool for protocols like FTP, S3 or SMB
>
> Stuff like Dropbox. Google Docs/Drive, and other user services should be 
handled on a user level.
> So every user can mount their Google Docs and move their files around.
>
> I don´t really know what you mean regarding the location of the files. Let´s 
say a user is using ownCloud and has already some files and folder uploaded. 
Than the users connect the ownCloud with an existing dropbox or Google Drive. 
Where do all the files show up that are already in dropbox or on Google? I 
think it is confusing if they all appear in the root directory. And what 
happens when a user has the same file or folder in ownCloud and dropbox?
>
> For me it makes more sense to mount a dropbox account into a folder, for 
example /dropbox.  But perhaps thats only me :-)
>
>
>
> > My main concern is creating a confusing environment for users with so many
> > options for adding storage and a cluttered filesystem. Any thoughts?
>
> Thats a good point. Mounting external filesystems is definitely an advanced 
option that shouldn´t be the first option on the settings page. :-)
>
>
> Cheers
> Frank
>
>
>
> Frank Karlitschek
> karlitschek at kde.org
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Owncloud mailing list
> Owncloud at kde.org
> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/owncloud




Michael - I was under the impression that Unhosted could use any of the 
storage providers with ownCloud.

Frank - I understand that it may be confusing when a bunch of files appear in 
your root directory and it may just add to the clutter I'm trying to avoid. My 
main reasoning for this is that it lets the user organize the files based on 
their own preference. Mounting it in one directory locks those files to that 
location and I feel that we aren't using ownCloud's potential in terms of 
filesystem abstraction. This also applies to sharing. I actually don't like 
the folder 'Shared' (the name choice isn't the best either) and would like to 
get rid of it in favor of putting files shared with you in the root directory. 
Of course, I think we should add a setting for the default location that these 
files end up, but allow some freedom for where they can be moved.


Michael 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/owncloud/attachments/20120220/2410c705/attachment.html>