FEEDBACK WANTED: Insync 3 headless

Feature requests
#31

If you can, kindly answer the following:

  1. Why do you need Insync headless?

We have workflows that run on a headless server, relying on insync to retrieve / push documents to / from drive folders. Each drive folder has different system endpoints stacked behind them, so we use insync as the document retrieval functionality in a workflow stream the moves document files to different backend systems.

  1. What is your workaround without Insync headless?

Another product.

  1. What features/behavior would make Insync 3 headless better than Insync 1.5 headless?

Better reliability. insync-headless seems to ‘freeze’ and stop syncing rather often. We’ve written a series of cron jobs that attempt to keep it restarting fairly often but even then we have to manually restart it from time to time.

  1. Would you prefer to have Insync 3 headless as a separate product or integrated into the GUI?

Separate product.

  1. What platform(s) do you need Insync headless to work?

Linux (Ubuntu or Redhat preferred).

1 Like
#32

Why do you need Insync headless?

I run my own “homeserver” and i have been using insync-headless from the start. use it to backup my familiy photos and selected shares. This feature is vital to me -and the main reason for “buying” insync in the beginning

So please keep it - and keep updating it.

1 Like
#33
  • I run insync-headless on my NAS for each user to sync that user’s Google Drive to their home directory. That way it’s included in backups.
  • I support several family members remotely and it’s easier to interact with Insync on the command line over SSH than using screen sharing

running insync 1.5 :sob:

  • support/updates and new features

Ideally the same product so there’s no drift in features/support
eg.

apt install insync3-headless
apt install insync3-gui

where both packages are built from the same source package

Linux - ideally Debian/Ubuntu & Docker

1 Like
#34

In case feedback is still wanted.

  • Why do you need Insync headless?

I want to use Insync to sync some files to a headless linux server.

  • What is your workaround without Insync headless?

Using insync 1.5.7

  • What features/behavior would make Insync 3 headless better than Insync 1.5 headless?

Support for the new “shortcuts to drive” for shared files instead of the old way of “adding to my drive”. Currently I have to manually select the things to sync in my “shared with me” stream and this is a pain.

  • Would you prefer to have Insync 3 headless as a separate product or integrated into the GUI?

No GUI at all, no dependence on X11 packages.

  • What platform(s) do you need Insync headless to work?

Linux (Unbuntu/Debian).

Possibly Mac if that prevents the annoying window that pops up all the time on my screen!

2 Likes
#35

  1. Why do you need Insync headless?
    I run linux server and need insync cli support

  2. What is your workaround without Insync headless?
    I am stuck with version 1.5

  3. What features/behavior would make Insync 3 headless better than Insync 1.5 headless?
    All version 3 features with future support, and with potential gdrive api update to break 1.5

  4. Would you prefer to have Insync 3 headless as a separate product or integrated into the GUI?
    Does not matter as long as there’s cli and linux service support

  5. What platform(s) do you need Insync headless to work?
    Ubuntu 18 and 20 server lts

#36
  1. Why do you need Insync headless?

I use Insync to synchronise (via Google Drive) my laptop and my server. I can update files on the server (e.g. running scripts to process documents) and have the output appear on the laptop. It also allows me to protect myself against stupidity (deleting contents of a file for example) by having an (rdiff-backup) versioned archive of the Google Drive contents.

I run it in a docker-compose container that uses “insync-headless accept_all_new_shares” to make sure everything is saved on the server.

  1. What is your workaround without Insync headless?

Keep using the old version and pray that the Google API doesn’t change and cause it to break.

  1. What features/behavior would make Insync 3 headless better than Insync 1.5 headless?

Nothing significant, although a simple docker container published on the docker hub would be nice. It could use docker-compose to provide (one or more) destination folders for each account and an easy way to sort out the authentication when initially installed.

Oh and a non-returning version (i.e. one that doesn’t fork from shell process) that copes with multiple accounts would be nice. My run script currently has to do this:

insync-headless accept_all_new_shares first@account.com
insync-headless accept_all_new_shares second@account.com
PID=$(pgrep insync-headless)
while [ -e /proc/${PID} ]
do
        sleep 5
done

It would be nicer if it was just:

insync-headless --accept-all-new-shares --all-accounts
  1. Would you prefer to have Insync 3 headless as a separate product or integrated into the GUI?

Separate product. I don’t want to have to install X libraries on the server.

  1. What platform(s) do you need Insync headless to work?

Ubuntu server LTS probably, although any distribution that is available on docker hub would be fine as that can run inside Ubuntu server. My current container is based on phusion/baseimage:0.11.

#37

It would be nice to have some feedback from Insync’s folks about this feature. I think this is a very important feature for a lot of person here and technically I don’t see how complicated that could be really.

#38

we are internally testing insync 3 headless for (linux) servers so it’s coming. we will soon have a private beta – if you want to join, send email to support@insynchq.com with subject “insync 3 headless beta”. you must be willingly to test and provide bugs/feedback.

this will be a small group so space will be limited.

note: previous insync 1.x users will get 1 year free of insync 3 headless

cc @mia @jbec

2 Likes
Download link to install older version
#39

I’m glad to hear there’s progress on a headless version again! Thanks all!

2 Likes
#40

Don’t forget to email us if you’re interested to test it out! :slight_smile: Make sure the email subject says “Insync 3 headless beta”.

Thank you!

#41

It’s great to see that this has finally been implemented, but the price is way too high for me. I’m a home user, but many years ago when Google were offering “Apps for your Domain” for free, I signed up and have kept using it for free. As such my home Google Account is a custom domain. It would obviously be a very, very big deal to go back to a gmail.com email address.

£121 per year is just too much for me to justify for personal use, so I’m going to have to hope the version I’m currently using (1.5 presumably) keeps working. If that stops working I’ll have to look elsewhere for an alternative. Disappointing, but I understand that insync need to make their money somehow.

1 Like
#42

Agreed - it’s nice to see this feature is back. Actually on a standard linux system, headless is all you need. It was the reason I signed up for insync originally. Then you took the feature away with the insync3 upgrade. Everyone had to suffer through all the inconsistencies with the user interfaces, inability to log in because of sloppy programming of these interfaces, …
Now insync3 is kinda stable again and then you decide to bring back the much easier to maintain but endlessly more useful headless version (which we all paid for when we signed up). But only now you make this a subscription service for $121 per year.
Not a good luck.

#43

I recently resumed using Insync on my Linux desktop and the home backup machine because Insync is more robust than other solutions I’ve cobbled together over the years (the last one was a shell script that invokes rclone). Although my experience with Insync 3.2.7 on the desktop has been excellent, I sadly had to uninstall headless 3.0.0 and go with 1.5.7 because 3 simply didn’t… sync. At all. Too bad because I was seriously considering buying a server subscription, if only to help support Insync development. I really do still miss the CLI for desktop, as it made remote management more efficient. One observation from working with headless 1.5.7.37371 versus 3.0.0.10585 is that the CLI options in the former seem more complete. FYI, I happily ran both desktop and headless for many years and have often considered buying licenses for some of the Windows machines in the house because Google’s client is, well, awful. I might be pushed over the top on that if the next Windows client for Insync were to come with a CLI (sshd for WIndows 10 is now a thing, after all).

#44

Hi @philnc,

Could you walk me through the steps you took that ended with your files not syncing? Please also send your logs.db and out.txt files to support@insynchq.com with the link to this post (so we can trace the original post).

I would like to forward this to our Linux team for further investigation.

#45

Hi @wwcsig @abudden!

I’m curious-- where did you find the $121 pricing? For reference, our Insync 3 Headless pricing can be found here.

#46

Hi @mia,

I found it at the link you sent:

image

1 Like
#47

@abudden Gotcha-- misread your post as $121, my bad there. In that case, I’ll forward this feedback to our team :slight_smile:

#48

$160/year is just too much for personal use. Please keep in mind that custom domains for google workplace are also popular for non-commercial usage.

#49

perhaps we can consider adding a non-commercial usage plan (custom domains) for cases like personal domains and the like?

2 Likes
#50

yes please, much appreciated.

1 Like