Linux Headless reinstall - how to do safely?

My previous linux computer, which ran insync-headless has died and I’ve moved all my disks to a new machine.

The OS is a fresh install, but I still have access to all the files, including my full home directory with the insync databases. I believe that the disk volumes have all been mounted to the right places on the filesystem, so that the folder that insync used to synchronise is in the same place as before, but I have not yet tried to install and run insync.

I would prefer not to have to synchronise all the files again (as they all already exist on the disk, and it’s ~1TB of data), and I am very worried that insync could mistakenly delete, or delete and re-upload all my Google Drive files, which would mess up things like previously shared files and folder in Drive.

What’s the safest way to get insync up and running?

Some details:

  • At this point, I consider Google Drive to be the master copy, but I have made a few minor file changes on the local disk since reinstallation, which I’d prefer to keep.
  • I was previously running insync 2, not insync 3
  • I’ve changed versions of Ubuntu from 18.04 (I think?) to 19.04
  • I was using insync headless, and would prefer to run it headless on the new computer
  • I’ve gone through the user accounts on the new machine and checked that all previously set up accounts exist on the new machine with same uids and gids (so that file and group permissions still work, and I can access the same files as before)
  • I’ve gone through links on the new machine to make sure that they all still find their target directories as before (where I’d used links to bring other directories into scope)

Any suggestions of pitfalls or best practice would be much appreciated

Hi @Dom,

Just want to clarify that Insync 3 doesn’t support headless, so if you’re interested to continue on syncing with headless, you’ll have to stay on 1.5.7!

To continue your syncing on headless, make sure to copy everything in ~/.config/Insync and also the same files (and structure) from your old machine to your new one!

Let me know if you run into any bumps or have any more questions :slight_smile: