using rsync to get around firewall issues?

rwhiffen

Have a situation I'm trying to work through. Up until now, dropbox.com access was allowed through our company firewall. For various reasons, they've decided only box.com will be allowed. I'd like to do a bit of a hack-around to make this work and am wondering if there's a glaring reason why this won't work:

Host A - Can't reach dropbox.com
Host B - Can reach dropbox.com

Both hosts can use box.com.

host A - does two rsyncs:
rsync -ruv /Users/rwhiffen/Box\ sync/1password /Users/rwhiffen/Dropbox/1password

rsync -ruv /Users/rwhiffen/Dropbox/1password /Users/rwhiffen/Box\ sync/1password

Box.com syncs its 1password file out.

host B - does two rsyncs:
rsync -ruv /Users/rwhiffen/Box\ sync/1password /Users/rwhiffen/Dropbox/1password

rsync -ruv /Users/rwhiffen/Dropbox/1password /Users/rwhiffen/Box\ sync/1password

So if I save a new password on Host B, it'll get written to the local dropbox. The rsync jobs will pull that change from Dropbox and put it in box.com. When Host A does its rsyncs, it will take the change from the box.com and then put it in the dropbox folder where 1password is expecting it. The reverse would work as well, Host A commits a change, Host B picks it up later. It's not elegant and I'd have to do a -delete pass too I imagine to handle deletions.

It's ugly, but any reasons why it wouldn't work?

Rich

MikeT

Hi @rwhiffen,

Are you asking if this is okay to do or are you asking because you tried it and it didn't work?

The only gotcha I can think of is the way we delete your items, we basically empty out the content of the file and leave an empty shell behind (tombstoned). Over a certain period of time, we will clear these tombstones out, which mean these items would be removed from the data file.

So, you would need to do -delete to handle these deletions properly.

Beside that, it should work. We have many users who are using Folder Sync in 1Password along with rsync to push to their NAS or network drives.

rwhiffen

Thanks for the reply Mike, that's the answer I was looking for. Wanted to make sure I wasn't headed towards a dead end before I started.

Rich

sjk

Hi Rich ( @rwhiffen ),

I've never used Folder Sync with rsync, but do have some experience with rsync in general. If you do get stuck with it somewhere along the way, myself or someone else on our support team will be happy to help you get back on track to success. :)

If you haven't started already, you might want to first do some sync testing using secondary vaults with unimportant sample data. Even the Demo vault could serve that purpose.