Hey all,

I got a question for you. Everybody has heard of Gmail by now, and most people should know that you are able to mount Gmail like a drive if your running linux (see GmailFS for details). I heard through word of mouth about this other service given by HRiders which offers 1 TB of space. Yes, you heard me right, 1 TB. That means roughly 1000 gigs, 1024 to be exact. I was wondering if there was a way to mount this account as a drive kinda like the same way you can do it with Gmail. Maybe someone already knows of a way to do this, or some code will have to be written for this to be possible. If it is the second answer could someone point me in the right direction of accomplishing this? If it can be done through C++, Java, or VB I might have a chance to doing it with some help.

Happy Holidays!

As far as I remember, the GmailFS programming was done with Perl or Python. At a guess, if you wanted to do something similar, you'd need to amend or create a program in those languages.

gmailfs isnt really anything special. All it does is send and check emails, the subject is the relevant filesystem information, the attachment is the file content. So yes, as long as you have a way to send and check email (libgmail, for example, which is what gmailfs used), then it should be fairly straightforward.

So I would have to mod the source code to fit the servers that HRiders.com uses, and play around in python. Do you think that its worth trying something like this? How many people would find this useful? I think I might read on how the guy wrote GmailFS, and attempt this. If anyone is interested in helping out, drop a post.

Wow!

Did anyone end up creating an account because of this thread?

hah, I did. I still dont believe it though, wont untill I see one TB of mail there. Thats why I think they can do this, nobody is going to fill it up, I know of few people filling up even thier gmail accounts...

That would own. In fact, you dont need to touch gmailfs. All you need to do is write your own library for checking and modifying mail. Gmailfs didnt do that, it used libgmail. So, theoretically, all you need to do is write a library to manipulate mail there, and do a bit of search and replace in gmailfs =D

I really think I want to try this for the experience and usefulness of it. But before that I need to completely understand what will be happening. Would I be actually storing files (i.e. movies, mp3s, pics) or emails with movies, mp3s, or pics as attachments? I haven't fully read up on how GmailFS works. I'm in the middle of digging through that site. No better time to try than during winter break, woohooo!

one last time: you dont even need to touch that. *all* you need to do is code a way to send and check emails on this hr server. Thats all. gmailfs, you can adapt to do the rest.

look, there are two parts: theres gmailfs, and theres libgmail. Libgmail checks and sends emails. Gmailfs uses libgmail, to do all the filesystemy stuff (and yes, the content is in the attachement, all the filesystem info is in the subject). So, all you need to do, is modify libgmail (not gmailfs, except for a few tweaks to get it to use the right library). Got me?

edit: I'd love to help you out, too. Gimme an email address or something.

i found a java version of something that works like libgmail (called jGmail). i think trying to do this in perl and/or python will set me back a week or two since i don't know how to use them. i could learn it, but i already got java in my back pocket. i was doing some googling on hrider's server. its using IMail on port 8383, so its strictly web based. i dont know if this would hinder what i'm trying to do. so if im looking at this correctly, its a 2 step process. write something just to check/send emails with hrider, then write something that would tweak that around to actually become the filesystem. that's basically what GmailFS is doing combining libgmail and fuse with the filesystem program. if i'm getting any of this mixed up please let me know.

lets make this the official thread to create a mountable 1 terabyte harddrive, haha.

any more suggestions would be appreciated. if you want to email me, just send it to [see_my_user_name][AT]comcast[dot]net

My guess is that they know not every single person that signs up will ever use that much space.... hell, one of my gmail accounts has over 300 to 400 messages in it and it still says I'm like at 1% or less..

W00T W00T!!!!

HRiders.com is now my 1 terrabyte file storing drive, hahaha. I backed up all my mp3s, vids, and pics. I can get them from anywhere now. Only thing is uploading takes a while. And the download takes time too cause HRider's servers are bogged down and slow.

Edit:
HRider uses port 8383 which is IMAIL. IMAIL requires Java to be installed on the server, so I figured Java would be best to "talk" to it.

Source code is available through a .jar file. But you will have to do some real good convincing. You need to have Java Virtual Machine installed on your box. I picked Java since I use it a lot and I'm already familiar with it. I think this makes my experiences with Java go way up.

nobody cares about my hard work