Dropbox LAN Sync requires access to TCP port 17500 for local syncing of files. I'm using the previous gen Airport Extreme. LAN sync does not seem to work at the moment and I'm wondering if there is something I need to configure on the Airport? Firewalls are off on my two Macs.
Thanks!
MacMini Late 2012-OTHER, OS X Yosemite (10.10.1)
There shouldn't be any settings necessary on your AirPort base station as all LAN sync traffic will remain on the local network. If you are not having any issue accessing Dropbox on the Internet the other part of the sync process is already working.
Have you already gone through the setup guide that Dropbox provides to verify that you have LAN sync configured properly on your local network?
Thanks Tesserax. I did read through the set-up guide. There's no problem as far as uploading/downloading with Dropbox but as far as I can tell the download is not via the LAN but via the internet (using SNMP Test utility). I'm still confused though as they mention in the set-up guide that LAN Sync requires access to TCP port 17500. Is there something about that specific port that is needed in the LAN Sync process? As I understand it the process involves communication between the DropBox server and the local Macs to start the local sync. Perhaps there's something going on in this back and forth that is not getting through?
There's no problem as far as uploading/downloading with Dropbox but as far as I can tell the download is not via the LAN but via the internet (using SNMP Test utility).
Ok, thanks for clarifying that for me. I just wanted to be sure you didn't have any syncing problems with Dropbox over the Internet. That would rule out any firewall issues with your router.
I'm still confused though as they mention in the set-up guide that LAN Sync requires access to TCP port 17500. Is there something about that specific port that is needed in the LAN Sync process? As I understand it the process involves communication between the DropBox server and the local Macs to start the local sync. Perhaps there's something going on in this back and forth that is not getting through?
I believe that they require TCP port 17500 only for the communication on the local network. That would not involve your AirPort base station, but each of the LAN clients that are enabled for Dropbox LAN syncing ... but this shouldn't be an issue if you have the OS X firewall disabled on them.
In my case, I have Dropbox with LAN syncing enabled, but I have the OS X firewall enabled. LAN synching appears to work for me. As you can see from the image below there is a single entry for Dropbox. Unfortunately, it doesn't allow for any type of configuration changes other than to allow or disallow incoming connections. You would need something like WaterRoof for more granular control of your OS X IPFW firewall. Note: For Yosemite there is version of WaterRoof, called Murus, since the software firewall has changed with this OS X version.
Configuring for Dropbox LAN sync?
