HowTo: Install Dropbox on CentOS 6.2 / SL 6.2

Update 19/05/2012:
The Repoforge repository has added Dropbox packages to their repository. As such, please refer to HowTo: Install Dropbox using Repoforge on CentOS 6.2 / SL 6.2 for up to date and easier instructions.

Dropbox is a Web-based file hosting service that uses networked storage provided by Dropbox, Inc to enable users to store and share files and folders with others across the Internet using file synchronization.

Dropbox is available for a huge variety of operating systems, including Android, Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, among others, so in this HowTo I'll detail the steps required to have it running on RHEL6 clones such as CentOS 6.2 and Scientific Linux 6.2.

This post assumes that you already have a Dropbox account, if you don't get one here.

Though the good folks at Dropbox don't keep a repository for RHEL6 clones, the available repository files work perfectly on CentOS 6.2 and Scientific Linux 6.2.

For a 32-bit system download:

 $ wget -c https://www.dropbox.com/download?dl=packages/fedora/nautilus-dropbox-0.7.1-1.fedora.i386.rpm  

If running a 64-bit instead download:

 $ wget -c https://www.dropbox.com/download?dl=packages/fedora/nautilus-dropbox-0.7.1-1.fedora.x86_64.rpm  

Having downloaded the package it's time to install it:

# rpm -Uvh nautilus-dropbox-0.7.1-1.fedora.*.rpm  

As part of installing the rpm package you'll be forced to restart Nautilus, afterwards point to Applications -> Internet and launch the new Dropbox entry.

Now a series of Dropbox Installation windows will guide you during the rest of the setup. In a matter of minutes you'll have a synchronized Dropbox folder; in my case this means synchronizing 2 Windows systems, 2 Linux systems and 1 Android phone (I'm investigating on how to get it working on FreeBSD).

Fixing Dropbox YUM repository error:
As a side effect of installing Dropbox YUM repository whenever you try to use YUM you'll get the following error:

 http://linux.dropbox.com/fedora/6/repodata/repomd.xml: [Errno 14] PYCURL ERROR 22 - "The requested URL returned error: 404"  
 Trying other mirror.  
 Error: Cannot retrieve repository metadata (repomd.xml) for repository: Dropbox. Please verify its path and try again  

The error originates from the fact that we're not using a RHEL6 repository but a Fedora 16 one. To fix the error edit the dropbox.repo file and replace baseurl=http://linux.dropbox.com/fedora/$releasever/ with baseurl=http://linux.dropbox.com/fedora/16/.

 # vim /etc/yum.repos.d/dropbox.repo  

 [Dropbox]  
 name=Dropbox Repository  
 #baseurl=http://linux.dropbox.com/fedora/$releasever/  
 baseurl=http://linux.dropbox.com/fedora/16/  
 gpgkey=http://linux.dropbox.com/fedora/rpm-public-key.asc  

It is advisable that you keep an eye out on Dropbox Linux page https://www.dropbox.com/install?os=lnx as the repository might change by the time of Fedora 17.