location for .nosync to prevent dataloss on mount failure.

[CoSoCo]

Hi,
I have not separately mounted the OneDrive folder itself, but the whole data partition.

Unmounted I have in my mount point:

praxis@T540p:~$ ls -al /mnt/Daten
insgesamt 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jul 25 14:41 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Jul 12 15:03 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    0 Jul 25 14:41 .nosync

I have linked ~/OneDrive to the Windows folder D:\Users\Praxis\OneDrive, so mounted I have:

praxis@T540p:~$ ls -ald OneDrive
lrwxrwxrwx 1 praxis praxis 32 Jul 25 14:44 OneDrive -> /mnt/Daten/Users/Praxis/OneDrive

Will this be secure to prevent from dataloss on mount failure?

[abraunegg]

@CoSoCo

Will this be secure to prevent dataloss on mount failure?

How are you mounting your Windows disk to /mnt/Daten ?

If you are using .nosync file you must also configure the client with the correct options to prevent the client from operating when the mount does not occur or goes missing.

Please read: https://github.com/abraunegg/onedrive/blob/master/docs/advanced-usage.md#configuring-the-client-for-use-when-sync_dir-is-a-mounted-directory

[CoSoCo]

How are you mounting your Windows disk to /mnt/Daten ?

$ mount | grep Daten
/dev/sda7 on /mnt/Daten type fuseblk (rw,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0,allow_other,blksize=4096)

I'm also using: https://github.com/gbrielgustavo/ntfs-3g-onedrive

If you are using .nosync file you must also configure the client with the correct options to prevent the client from operating when the mount does not occur or goes missing.

Yes I know, I've done this, see my onedrive config here: #3396

And I'm curious, if my constellation / setting would be secure also without relying on classify_as_big_delete.

I assume, that your onedrive service expects:
/mnt/Daten/Users/Praxis/OneDrive/.nosync
or:
/mnt/Daten/Users/Praxis/.nosync
But here I can't do this, the only possibility is:
/mnt/Daten/.nosync

[CoSoCo]

@CoSoCo

Will this be secure to prevent dataloss on mount failure?

Hi, may you have missed my question? My case is not mentioned in https://github.com/abraunegg/onedrive/blob/master/docs/advanced-usage.md#configuring-the-client-for-use-when-sync_dir-is-a-mounted-directory

[abraunegg]

Then you need to re-think how you are mounting your external drive to access your OneDrive data

To make .nosync work you must have that file visible in your configured 'sync_dir' location when your mounted data is not mounted.

Please adjust your approach to how you are mounting and making your data available.

[CoSoCo]

I my case, sync_dir is the default ~/OneDrive, which is a symlink to /mnt/Daten/Users/Praxis/OneDrive
If /mnt/Daten/ is not mounted, the symlink is "dangling".
Am I right, that in this case, your OneDrive client does nothing, i.e. doesn't remove all files from the OneDrive host?
That would be enough for me.

[abraunegg]

Am I right, that in this case, your OneDrive client does nothing, i.e. doesn't remove all files from the OneDrive host?
That would be enough for me.

If the symbolic link is EMPTY and there is no .nosync present - ALL YOUR SYNC FILES WILL BE VIEWED AS BEING LOCALLY DELETED

[CoSoCo]

If the symbolic link is EMPTY and there is no .nosync present - ALL YOUR SYNC FILES WILL BE VIEWED AS BEING LOCALLY DELETED

That's clearly stated, thank you!
Otherwise, would it help to create path Users/Praxis/OneDrive/.nosync in the mount point /mnt/Daten/?

[abraunegg]

Otherwise, would it help to create path Users/Praxis/OneDrive/.nosync in the mount point /mnt/Daten/?

At this stage, you need to start actively testing what works in your environment instead of continuing with hypothetical questions.

We can keep going in circles with questions and responses, but that won’t get you any closer to a working solution. You need to take the next step: test and evaluate the available options to implement the appropriate safeguards for how you are mounting and using your data. I can’t do this part for you.

[CoSoCo]

Chapter https://github.com/abraunegg/onedrive/blob/master/docs/advanced-usage.md#configuring-the-client-for-use-when-sync_dir-is-a-mounted-directory could be misunderstood.
There is:
sync_dir = "/path/to/mountpoint/OneDrive"
So in case of a USB-stick I have mount point:
/media/user/KINGSTON/
On the USB-Stick I have the folder
OneDrive
for my offline data.
So according "In your 'mount point', before you mount your external folder|device, create empty .nosync file," I create:
/media/user/KINGSTON/.nosync
which will become invisible, if the USB-Stick is mounted.
In the case, the USB-Stick is not mounted, onedrive --sync creates a new directory
/media/user/KINGSTON/OneDrive
and starts downloading the complete offline files onto the internal disk.

So I think, it should be better explained, what is exactly meant by "mount point" in the chapter.

[abraunegg]

@CoSoCo
Please read the clarified documentation to assist you.

[CoSoCo]

Really great !!
Thanks for picking up my "complain".

Maybe you could change line 266 to something like:

sync_dir = "/mountpoint/path/to/OneDrive"   # or
sync_dir = "/mount/point/path/to/OneDrive" 

This might be even more clear.

Before:
sudo mkdir -p ...
you could insert:
ls -al /mnt/external/
to demonstrate the usually empty mount point.

And maybe you could add as 1st example, where the data is in the root directory of the mounted volume with:
sync_dir = "/mount/name"

sudo touch "/mount/name/,nosync"