Dropbox is a powerful synchronization drive and one of the few cloud storage services that supports WEBDAV. Linux systems can install davfs2 and mount Dropbox using webdav to easily access and backup files. If you haven't registered for Dropbox yet, you can visit www.dropbox.com to sign up (please use a VPN if necessary).

Install davfs2

Installing davfs2 on CentOS is very simple, just execute the following command:

yum install davfs2 -y

Enable webdav support for Dropbox

This step was quite confusing and there wasn't any official documentation available. Some online sources mentioned that the webdav address is https://dav.dropdav.com/ and you just need to enter your username and password. However, this didn't work at all. The correct method is as follows:

• First, register an account at https://www.dropdav.com
• Authorize dropdav to access your Dropbox
• Take note of your dropdav account username and password

Mount Dropbox

After completing the previous steps, mounting Dropbox is straightforward. Just execute the following commands. You will be prompted to enter your dropdav account username and password.

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

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

Afterwards, any files stored in /home/dropbox will be automatically synchronized to Dropbox, achieving the purpose of backup. Here is a screenshot:

Conclusion

Due to the Great Firewall, Dropbox may not work properly or be slow on servers located in China. It is recommended to use servers located outside of China to mount Dropbox for data backup. Another cloud storage service that supports WEBDAV in China is Jiaonang Cloud, which can also be mounted using the same method.