How to find files with to long encrypted names? (no sync with DropBox)

hpvd

has anybody found a (comfortable) way how to identify the files which has -with name encryption switched on- too long filenames?
(they are not synced in Windows DropBox- see this information to slightly different topic but same problem cause:
https://forums.boxcryptor.com/topic/boxcryptor-crashes-when-creating-long-nested-folder-structure)

Of course you can use (free) tools like
http://www.shivaranjan.com/2008/09/18/find-out-files-and-folder-with-long-path-names-in-windows/
to check if there are files with to long names/paths.
But since encryption has to be switched on for this check - you do not know which ones you have to modify....

Or looking from a different point of view: is there a possibility to get an information which files in a dropbox folder are not synct?

Best regards

HPVD

marcoemme41

I have the same problem (see my post "Foldername too long, and Drobox syncronization fails").
About your question, I suggest you this trick for identify which Boxcryptor files are not synchronized with Dropbox:
1) install Dropbox in another PC in the same LAN (o in a virtual machine on you PC).
2) let Dropbox to create here a new replication of your clouds folders, at least the folder containing the encrypted files (those handled by BoxCryptor in your original PC).
3) share the new folder over the LAN, so it can be seen by the original PC.
4) make a folder comparison between the folder with encripted files in the original PC and the corresponding one in the new installation. You can use a tool like Beyond Comnpare or similar.

In this way you can identify BoxCryptor encrypted files not syncronized with the cloud.

I hope to be helpful.

ehab

i also use Beyond Compare and compare the encrypted dirs.

one solution is to rename long dir names or reduce depth.

Joe0815

@ehab
do this with ISO9001 (i.e. meaningful and structured) dirs and filenames. It's hard enough to stay below 200+ characters in Windows...

ehab

@Joe0815, i tried goggling ISO9001 filenaming too lazy to check many pages, can you please give example for this sample:

e:\Music\unsorted collection\downloads June 2012\EENOOUUHHI RRUTTVVAAR\unsorted\2010\BRRGFGO MAOA Icons - JAM COIAPAA CAPAP9 - BREAD the MELOLO- IX. ARRCCHGEL DRWQQEELL FFFTTIGG HHE AAIAIAIQMMAOQ.flac

if i suffer from such a situation then i would make a hash table with actual file name and corresponding GUID or some unique identifier. Then would use a virtual file manager to access those files. In fact i do the same with normal files in deep paths for quick access using total commander and virtual panel.

lookforward for your response.

Joe0815

@ehab
I'm sorry, cannot publish these. Don't have them at home but at (more than one!) clients site (that's why I'm not allowed) where we regularly scan path lengths to avoid paths longer than 230 (!!) characters (which already gives trouble /w some software).

For that reason I was very curious about your 'hashtable' solution? Is that something one could use in a productive environment with 'dumb' users? Does it work on an Office environments open/save dialog?
If so: PLEASE share your knowledge with me, it really would help us!

Thank you!
Joe

ehab

@Joe0815,

yes it can work, virtual file system handle that job pretty well. On Linux this solution can be free " using fuse and some layer " on Windows Dokan is free and those commercial are CBFS, boxedappsdk provide the layer.

If you are a coder check it out, otherwise it can be developed.

hpvd

thanks for your answers. Good the hear some other people have this problem.
Seems to be no simple or non time consuming solution available yet.

Maybe it could be an idea to implement a simple "character count feature" directly into boxcryptor (e.g. in the unlimited version, the others doesn't have filename encryption anymore)
Only at this place the to long file names could be shown in a readable manner...

Joe0815

The question was if filenames have to be /encrypted/ at all?
Wasn't it enough for most purposes to scramble the actual names with an individual key (like a hash of my passphrase/key) which resulted in same name/path length.

Therefore a feature request: Add option to scramble file names instead of encrypting them.

hpvd

@ Joe0815: interesting idea :-)

another way could be to adopt encryption to the remaining path length

CC

I prefer marcoemme41's method, especially because I also occasionally notice that (using quite a few storage providers for evaluation purposes) some files are not always synchronized / stored for some reason. That cannot be checked manually, even when only storing several thousands of files for evaluation purposes.

Regarding pathname lengths, although I'm using some sort of (comprehensive and free) Linux layer on top of Windows (called Cygwin) which is a powerful environment to handle all kinds of tasks, I think I would do the following under Windows' Command prompt to get a first impression of long pathnames:

dir your_toplevel_encrypted_directory_name /s /b > filelist.txt

( dir your_unencrypted_directory_tree /s /b > filelist2.txt )

gives you all your pathnames in file filelist.txt, sort this file according to the length of lines (i.e. pathnames) and you will get an impression of the most problematic pathnames.

In addition, when using filename encryption, exit BoxCryptor and start it again as:

boxcryptor.exe /translate

this way, BoxCryptor will show both the encrypted and unencrypted names together when browsing an encrypted directory hierarchy in a command shell or Windows Explorer.

Last but not least: BoxCryptor is in important ways encfs compatible, and (not considering several encfs IV chaining options) encfs only allows for a few name encoding techniques. Stream name encoding results in shorter encoded names than block encoding, of course.

neiaberau

with cygwin indeed, this is quite easy:

boxcrypter 1.2.0.2
$ time find /cygdrive/l/ | wc -lL
10109 164

real 0m4.881s
user 0m0.140s
sys 0m0.357s

encryypted
neiaberau@neiwln2 /cygdrive/c/_dropbox/Dropbox
$ time find /cygdrive/c/_dropbox/Dropbox/BC1 | wc -lL
10110 257

real 0m0.895s
user 0m0.217s
sys 0m0.669s

I have 10109 files in my boxcryptor drive, with max path length 164
I have 10110 files in my enrypted locate, with path length 257

so,
- one file is missing (conflict or path length ...)
- i am just lucking, regarding file length ....

Note:the path length above includes /cygdrive/ so, for "windows"
they are acually shorter.

ehab

@neiaberau,

first thanks for the find cmds, i used UnxUtils "GNU utilities for Win32" instead of Cygwin.

those were my results

boxcryptor mounted folder
find t:\ | wc -lL
3788 167

raw dropbox folder with encrypted contents
find d:\Dropbox\Disk | wc -lL
3822 258

the difference number is big so i looked at explorer results for both and they were:
3 229 file(s), in 593 directories

then i checked with "OverDisk" and total commander i get same results as from explorer.
Dirs : 592 , Files: 3,229 --- "1 folder is not included i know"

so i don't understand why find outcome is different and if i should trust it.

neiaberau

- the numbers you get the way I use find are number of lines in the output and maximum length of a line.

so why can diffrences appear:
a) crypted and unencrypted folder should always differ by one file (.encfs6.xml, unless moved to another location)
b) the way I used find, the directories are counted as well 3229+593=3822
- which matches exactly for the encrypted disk, if I read your numbers correct
- however dos not match the boxcryptor folders, which i cannot explain,
for boxcryptor 1.2.0.2 or encfs4win it does match on my comptuer
for boxcryptore 1.3.2 it does not either, but there I have a triplication of all entries .... (see other post)

for identify the 5 longest paths, this can be used:
find /cygdrive/c/_dropbox/Dropbox | awk '{print length($0) "\t" $0}' | sort -n | tail -5