How to add existing files on the server into Seafile?

Seafile Server
1

Hello everyone
I’m considering migrating from Nextcloud to Seafile.
Is it possible to add all the files from the Nextcloud storage to Seafile storage system (same server)? The NC store files as is, in the filesystem, so it should be possible, but I couldn’t find a clue in the documentation, the FAQs and the forum. any idea ?
Regards

2

Yes, but not as easily as you might want. Nextcloud as you noted stores files “as is” in the file system, but seafile does not. Seafile uses a deduplicated storage system where files get broken into little chunks, and those chunks are stored in the filesystem. This more complicated storage powers a lot of seafile’s features (like keeping old versions of files with minimal extra disk space used).

So you would need to install the seafile client (or you could use the seadrive client, but that would be a bit more complicated), connect it to the seafile server, and tell it to sync the directory from nextcloud. It would probably just be easier to do that from the copy of the files synced to your workstation instead of doing it on the server. It is easier to configure the client with the GUI that on the command line.

3

Thank a lot. What about using the client on the server ? I will try.

4

Sorry I wasn’t clear. Yeah you can run the client on the server and it would work fine. What I meant to say is that you can do that. Just be aware that installing and configuring the text-only CLI agent isn’t as easy as using the GUI in the normal client, and usually a server doesn’t have desktop to run the agent GUI from.

5

You were perfectly clear. I just suddenly thought about the client on server. Thanks again.

6

It’d possible to use rclone (very efficient and easy to install)

1 Like
7

Hi there!

Just my 2 cents on it:

  • Setup a network drive mount on the Seafile server to the Nextcloud server
  • Use Seaf-import.sh on the folder structure

This way it should import the files into the system as normal, but also keep a version on the Nextcloud server.

Please note, if running Docker you’ll probably need to map it to the container for ease.

Let me know if you have any questions!

—EDIT—

You also won’t need to do a copy to save time!

8

Hi.

Last time that I needed to do that I used https://rclone.org .
Although it’s a “cloud storage manager”, one of the “protocols” that it understands it’s Seafile.
So I did a one-way sync from my local folder to remote Seafile libraries.