Mount Dropbox on CentOS Using davfs2

Dropbox is a powerful sync drive and one of the few cloud storage providers that supports WebDAV. Linux systems can install davfs2 to mount Dropbox via WebDAV, facilitating file access or backup usage. If you haven't registered for Dropbox, you can visit www.dropbox.com to sign up (please note that a proxy may be required as the site might be inaccessible in some regions).

Install davfs2

Installing davfs2 on CentOS is straightforward. Execute the following command:

yum install davfs2 -y

Enable WebDAV Support for Dropbox

This step was quite tricky, as official documentation was unavailable. While online sources suggest the WebDAV address is https://dav.dropdav.com/ where you simply enter your username and password, this does not work in practice. The correct procedure is:

• Register an account at https://www.dropdav.com.
• Authorize dropdav to access your Dropbox.
• Record the dropdav username and password.

Mount Dropbox

After completing the steps above, mounting Dropbox is simple. Execute the following commands. You will be prompted to enter your dropdav username and password during this process.

# Create the mount directory
mkdir /home/dropbox
# Execute the mount command
mount -t davfs https://dav.dropdav.com/backup /home/dropbox

In the command above, backup in https://dav.dropdav.com/backup refers to the folder name you created in Dropbox. Please modify it according to your actual situation. If you see the following screenshot, the mount was successful.

Once completed, files stored in /home/dropbox will automatically sync to Dropbox, achieving the backup goal, as shown in the following screenshot.

Summary

Due to network restrictions, Dropbox may not function properly or may be slow on servers located in China. It is recommended to mount Dropbox on foreign servers for data backup. For users in China, other cloud storage providers that support WebDAV, such as [坚果云 (Jianguoyun)], can also be mounted using this method.