How do I get Opensuse10.3 to run an iFolder3 client against older iFolder3 servers?

Jeremy Pavlov October 13, 2007 1 Comment

I admit it. I thought I was out of luck. Let me explain…

You see, I run various versions of iFolder3 servers (home is 3.4, corporate is 3.2, customers, etc) that I depend on. But, I could not resist jumping to Opensuse10.3 as soon as it came out. Right after getting the OS installed, migrating my Thunderbird and Firefox environments, I suddenly panicked as I was unable to install the iFolder client 3.3.4 that I had been using on my Opensuse10.2 machines. I downloaded about fifty million different versions from ifolder.com trying to find the right magical 3.3.4 version that would work, to no avail (I kept running into compatibility and dependency errors with the various RPMs). Heck, I even tried the 3.3.6 version off my brand-new OES2 server… at least with 3.3.6, I got connected, but could not find the files…

And here’s where the story started. Just when I though I was going to have to give up and… sigh… actually *wait* for someone to build a set of client RPMs for Opensuse10.3… sheesh… I figured I’d try Novell’s site, even though they traditionally don’t offer much in the way of iFolder stuff on their main site. But then… Bingo. What’s this? A set of iFolder3.3.4 client RPMs for SLED10sp1… and I thought, “Of course – the *paying* customers!” I should have thought of it earlier…. and SLED10sp1 is practically equivalent to Opensuse10.2! Close enough! 😉

So I tried it and guess what… it worked. In fact, I’m synchronizing my gigs of iFolder data as I write this. Happiness.

So, in a nutshell, here’s a re-statement of what I’m saying…: If you want to run an iFolder3 client on Opensuse10.3 against a iFolder3.2 and/or iFolder3.4 back-end server, install the following RPMs:

• simias-1.4.7145.1-sled10sp1.i586.rpm
• ifolder3-3.4.7145.1-sled10sp1.i586.rpm
• nautilus-ifolder3-3.4.7145.1-sled10sp1.i586.rpm

…and there was much rejoicing…

Update, 20071013:

Yep. I just re-confirmed; On Opensuse10.3 (after the latest patches), the iFolder3 client provided with OES2 (3.6.0-7257.1-3.2) *will* install, run, and allow you to log in to your existing iFolder 3.2 and 3.4 servers. But once running, the client does not see the previously-existing subscribed folders.

However, to be honest, my 3.2 server is TLS-encrypted, so I cannot really see what’s going on in packet captures. And the captures from, and logs on, my 3.4 server don’t really show anything wrong. Hmm. Not sure I care, since I found a work-around for now…

Also, an esteemed associate (who’s Linux skizills are not in question) warns me privately to warn you that there are great differences between the opensource and the non-opensource versions of the iFolder Clients of the same major versions, that can be found from Novell and elsewhere. In fact, you may find that some version of the 3.6 client from ifolder.com will work just fine on Opensuse10.3. If you *do* find that to be the case, PLEASE comment in this thread and I will update later (thanks!).