Backup Shared Folders to remote NextCloud Server <SOLVED>

Hi

I think this is a simple question to answer - so hopefully someone can confirm whether NextCloud works in ths way or not… I have looked at a few similar posts on here, but not seen any posts asking exactly what I want to know…

I have an UnRAID Server running a NextCloud docker in a datacenter. It works perfectly :slight_smile:

However I want to add some extra drives to this offsite store but want to make sure it will work how I expect it to…

At home, I have some shares on my LAN containing some documents I’d like to store offsite for protection.

So, my question is this… if I install the NextCloud agent on my ‘usual PC’ and set it to create a copy of the folder with my documents in, it will ‘back’ it up to my remote server :+1:

If I amend/update or add any new files from my ‘usual PC’ to this share it will update the files on my NextCloud server.

But… what happens if I access the protected share from another PC on the LAN, which doesnt have the NextCloud client installed and configured, then amend the documents or add new ones?? Will the PC which has the NextCloud client installed recognise the changes and upload the amendments to the remote NextCloud server?

Or is there a better way of monitoring shared drives on a LAN for changes and updating the remote NextCloud server after changes are made? And likewise, if some changes are made on the NextCloud Server it’d need to update the local monitored files to reflect these changes?

In case it helps, the local server is also an UnRAID machine, so has the ability to run VMs and dockers on it.

What I would actually like to do is to have a VM client / docker on my local UnRAID machine which would monitor the local shares and update either the remote NextCloud Servers data, or the local files depending what and where is changed.

Hopefully I haven’t complicated this scenario and perhaps someone can assist?

Many thanks

OK… being impatient, I have found the answer by running some tests on my system.

I turned off my ‘usual’ PC which has the NextCloud client installed. Changed some and added a few new files to the monitored share from another machine on my LAN… obviously nothing updated on the remote NextCloud server because the ‘usual’ PC with the NextCloud client was switched off. But… when I turned it back on it scanned the protected share and updated the files on the remote NextCloud Server :smiley:

So this is exactly what I had hoped… in case anyone is wondering - I will create a lightweight Ubuntu VM on my UnRAID NAS just to run a NextCloud client - so regardless which PC on my LAN I update any documents (in the protected share) from - it will automatically update the remote NextCloud server - and vice-versa :grinning:

Hi, Is this still working well? Is the VM available, or did you do anything special to setup the Nextcloud client on the VM?