Grive is a client for Google Drive that runs on Linux. It allows you to synchronize files on a Linux system with a Google Drive account. More information on Grive is available at:
What interests me the most about Grive is the potential for using it to backup a directory on a Linux system off-site. The execution of Grive can be made automatic so that as files are changed in a directory tree, those changes are mirrored out to Google Drive. The reverse is also true.
I see this having a very interesting use-case for making off-site backups. For example, suppose I'm supporting a Linux server which has a directory that is made available to a group of users via Samba or NFS. I can use Grive to automagically back those files up to a Google Drive account with very little additional configuration or overhead.
Moreover, I can re-share the backup structure as a view-only resource to my users. I can even access those very files using a mobile application from my smartphone.
I'm most excited about creating a "Grive Server" which shares a directory tree out over NFS to other UNIX systems (such as OpenBSD servers); those servers can then use cronjobs to copy (and encrypt) important files to the NFS share which is then backed up off-site to Google Drive. This gives me a very reasonably priced cloud-based off-site backup solution, even when using a network with mixed operating systems.
Creating an effective, off-site backup solution can be as simple as having Grive installed on a Linux server. Other than Grive, there are no clients to install, no additional training needed, and minimal (if any -- Google Drive offers 5gb of storage for free with each and every Google Drive account) cash outlay required.
Keep an eye on Grive, the Free / Open-Source Software (FOSS) Google Drive client for Linux:
http://www.lbreda.com/grive/
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