[GNC] Recommendations for hosting gnucash file - Google Drive, Microsoft 365, Local server?

[Kalpesh Patel]

If you are paranoid about cloud provider snooping into your files and folders when storing data in the cloud, please look into excellent open source tool called CryptSync (https://tools.stefankueng.com/CryptSync.html) which I have mentioned it in the past.  It works as advertised so far. I do not rely on anyone's word once that data leaves my control as they can change their prerogative at their whims. I've been in IT world far too long to know this for sure, sadly!

-----Original Message-----
From: David Carlson <david.carlson.417 at gmail.com> 
Sent: Saturday, September 07, 2024 9:21 PM
To: David Cousens <davidcousens49 at gmail.com>
Cc: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
Subject: Re: [GNC] Recommendations for hosting gnucash file - Google Drive, Microsoft 365, Local server?

I would like to know what level of security these hosting methods provide.
The GnuCash .gnucash data file is essentially an un-encrypted text file.  I think some cloud services, possibly including Google Drive may also be unencrypted, tho I have not checked.  Do other cloud services offer better security?  Private NAS solutions need to be configured by the user, but they can be secure. What do you consider needs to be done to achieve adequate security?

On Sat, Sep 7, 2024 at 3:59 PM David Cousens <davidcousens49 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Bruce,
> I keep my Gnucash data files in a Dropbox account which is accessible 
> from my laptop (Linux Mint), desktop(Linux Mint), phones (Android) and
> my wife's laptop (formerly Windows 11 but now linux Mint).   In my
> situation the file is only ever accessed from one computer at a time 
> so no conflicts usually.  I also use Unison to synchronize my laptop 
> and desktop before using the laptop remotely (mainly for other work, 
> but it can synch the user preference files if desired), but I don't synch the
> Dropbox account.   It generally only takes a minute or two to sync the
> machines as I keep the sync updated fairly regularly.
>
> I have an NAS for local backups, which is in turn backed up to cloud 
> storage.  The Dropbox is useful if you need to share the files with 
> your accountant or others (assuming they also use GnuCash) as you can 
> just send them a link to the file and they can download a copy without 
> disrupting your ongoing usage.  The Dropbox is mainly a hangover from 
> days when I did some accounting/bookkeeping for others and these days 
> I could have it shared form the NAS but it used to be useful for 
> accessing client  files from client's computers back in the day.  I 
> also have NFS network sharing setup on the LAN with automounting on 
> demand but found that did not interact all that nicely with Linux 
> Mint's  file manager (Nemo) as it used to take a long time to connect 
> the file shares which delayed its startup at one stage ( where the 
> files were automounted was the problem.
>
> David Cousens
>
> On Sat, 2024-09-07 at 09:57 -0400, Bruce Griffis wrote:
> > I am running GnuCash 5.5 on my Ubuntu 24.04 desktop. I also have 
> > GnuCash installed on my Windows 11 laptop. Right now I just copy my 
> > most recent GnuCash file over to USB if I want to work on it using 
> > my laptop. I tried using Google Drive, but found the application 
> > hanging when using Google Drive under Ubuntu. Not sure if it is 
> > because my connection is too slow (1 Gig to my Cisco switch, 1 Gig 
> > to my router, 100 Megs across my carrier) or if Ubuntu has timing 
> > issues with Google Drive. I also have a subscription to Microsoft 
> > 365 and my Windows backups go there.
> > Ubuntu backups go to an attached USB drive. althouhg I'm considering 
> > cloud storage for Ubuntu as well.  I've read that Ubuntu 24.04 
> > supports Microsoft drive, but you may need to log in whenever you 
> > access the drive. Only reason I'd consider it is that my Microsoft 
> > subscription comes with a decent amount of cloud storage. Finally, I 
> > have a spare desktop under my desk I could fire up as a headless 
> > server. And I have an older Raspberry PI I could probably turn into 
> > a NAS and share it locally using Samba.
> >
> > What is the current recommendation for sharing GnuCash across 
> > multiple PCs when it will be one user? I don't want to get too 
> > tricky. Heck, I could probably just share my desktop's drive locally 
> > for a low tech solution.
> >
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--
David Carlson