RemoteCabinet is a client-server architecture based command-line application that does a lot of things that Dropbox is known for. It allows clients to store files on the server, and allows synchronization between clients. This implementation of RemoteCabinet shows that a Dropbox-like application can be deployed with a TCP/IP protocol to completely work on devices that are readily available to users safely and securely without relying on outside services. This program was made mainly because I wanted to convert an old laptop laying around into a remote file server.
The requirements of RemoteCabinet are fairly simple and less demanding. The requirements are as follows:
- Both client and server scripts must be run on machines with a Unix operating system (macOS or Linux)
- Python 3.6 or higher must be installed on the machines running the scripts
RemoteCabinet was predominantly developed and tested on a MacBook Pro running macOS Monterey 12.6. It was also developed and tested on a machine running Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa). The scripts were executed with Python 3.9.5 and the code was written in Visual Studio Code with the Python extension.
Executing this program is fairly straightforward. Note that for this program to work, the server script must be started first on the server machine so that a client can connect to it. There are 3 steps to starting the server script:
- On the server machine, change directory to the folder containing the server script RCServer.py
- Start the server with the command: python RCServer.py
- In the case where the above command does not work, start the server with the command: python3 RCServer.py
The RemoteCabinet client or server scripts can be terminated through a regular command-line keyboard interrupt (CTRL + C / CMD + C). A server will only shut down once all client have disconnected, even after a keyboard interrupt is initiated in the server.
Contributions to this project are very welcome. There is definitely room for improvement, and I welcome anyone to share their ideas or improve upon this project. You can create a new issue if you notice a problem or see room for improvement, or solve one of the existing issues. Solve an issue by creating a fork to the repository, and creating a pull request with the necessary fixes.