On 12/14/2011 11:37 AM, Brian K. White wrote:

On 12/14/2011 1:22 PM, lynn wrote:

...

Hi When I open a libreoffice document from on our LAN, a lockfile is produced which prevents anyone opening a second writable copy. It works fine, with Libre and Microsoft office lockfiles being mutually respected. If however, I open a document from my Dropbox folder, the lockfile which is produced is not transferred to the cloud.

I am unable to get beyond sales staff at Dropbox who point me to 3rd party solutions (none is available for Linux), workarounds, or tell me that file locking may be implemented in the future.

What is different about a lockfile that distinguishes it from all the other files which Dropbox sync? (Others have mentioned that they are hidden or/[and therefore] may not be transferable to cloud file systems. Hidden text files synchronise OK though, and we have ext4, nfs, samba and ntfs working together fine here.)

Confused. L x

A file-lock is not a lock-file.

File locking and lock files are entirely entirely entirely different things.

google "file locks" and "lock files"

The answer is pretty much what they tried to tell you, dropbox doesn't support file locking (which is no great failing btw, file locking is hard over a network and especially so over the (slow) internet, and insanely so over something like dropbox that never claimed to be a real full network filesystem but more like a "more convenient than ftp folder".

So you can simply "don't do that" or you can try various extra kludges to try to layer another filesystem on top of dropbox.

You are basically expecting something you have no right to expect. If you need a real network filesystem then use a real network filesystem.

An excellent rant, but most of it is totally wrong. OpenOffice/LibreOffice write ACTUAL files for locking. These begin with a . (dot) and are normally hidden. (These lock files are also protected with a file lock). Dropbox does not sync these (because it can't read them, because of the file lock). This is the ONLY limitation that prevents locking from working. Its a major complaint in the Dropbox forums. Other packages that create lock files without a leading dot, and without a file-lock work just fine. Further, lock checking via visible lock files is NOT hard. It works very well in most instances. There exists a possibility of simultaneous opening by different users, but this is rare by virtue of the way dropbox is used by most people, and easily handled by applications which can detect a lock failure, and by dropbox itself when file collisions occur. Locks via actual files, and the handling of asynchronous lock file creation is something that has been handled in slow networks for a long time. -- _____________________________________ ---This space for rent--- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

An excellent rant, but most of it is totally wrong.

OpenOffice/LibreOffice write ACTUAL files for locking. These begin with a . (dot) and are normally hidden. (These lock files are also protected with a file lock).

Dropbox does not sync these (because it can't read them, because of the file lock). This is the ONLY limitation that prevents locking from working. Its a major complaint in the Dropbox forums. We are vociferous in those threads. Dropbox are selling products which

You are basically expecting something you have no right to expect. If you need a real network filesystem then use a real network filesystem. they say are designed for team collaboration, but which do not include file locking for office docs.

Other packages that create lock files without a leading dot, and without a file-lock work just fine.

If I open a libre office document called lynn, this file is produced: .~lock.lynn.odt# It is not synced. If I copy and rename it, it _is_ synced. Dot or no dot. It seems to be that Dropbox are looking out just for office lock files. All other types of file we have tried are synced.

Further, lock checking via visible lock files is NOT hard. It works very well in most instances.

There exists a possibility of simultaneous opening by different users, but this is rare by virtue of the way dropbox is used by most people, and easily handled by applications which can detect a lock failure, and by dropbox itself when file collisions occur.

Locks via actual files, and the handling of asynchronous lock file creation is something that has been handled in slow networks for a long time.

Exactly what I have tried to argue. Unfortunately, it is not possible to communicate with anyone at Dropbox who would understand this. Thanks for your reply. L x -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org