File Server

Access to a common area and user-specific private areas.

Access must be both from web page (HTTP/S) and from WebDAV.

filebrowser is used for web based access from browser

NGINX is used as WebDAV server.

All users need to be in the users group.

The common share will be accessible by any user in the users group.

Files will be under /home/common for example. The shares will be configured in the /etc/conf.d/shares file:

shares

SHARES="common:3002 other:3003"

where “common” and “other” is the name of the folder under /home and 3002/3003 is the port number (which will be needed for NGINX reverse proxy access via browser).

File Browser is a nice web-based file manager that you can use to access your file server via browser.

I do not like the default installation method because it will install system-wide. I will show you how to install in a more customized way.

first you need to create a new user:

 > useradd -d /data/daemons/filebrowser -m filebrowser -g users

the filebrowser user will have users as it's main group so that any files managed by it can be accessed and managed by users as well.

You will need to create the following folders architecture in your filebrowser home folder:

• bin: where the FileBrowser binary will be located
• data/db: where the FileBrowser databases files will be stored
• data/logs: where the various log files will be created

You need to set the umask for the user to 0002 so that any new files created by it will be writable by the users.

Then, as filebrowser user, get the software package and decompress it. The default install approach is based on a auto executable web link (here) which i do not recommend to use directly. Instead go to here and download the proper package for your architecture. Then:

 > su - filebrowser
 > echo "umask 0002" >> ~/.bashrc
 > source ~/.bashrc
 > mkdir bin data data/logs data/db
 > cd bin
 > tar xvf ../linux-amd64-filebrowser.tar.gz

Now, you will need to start a copy of FileBrowser for each share you want to have, and it must be owned by the user that want file permissions on that share.

To achieve this, you will be using a special script called fileserver.sh which i will show you at the end, because it will contain also the WebDAV start stuff in it.

since it will be hidden behind the reverse proxy, you can disable FileBrowser internal authentication.

You need to setup filebrowser to access your common archive, so create the folder /data/archive/common and own it to filebrowser:users:

 > mkdir /data/archive
 > mkdir /data/archive/common
 > chown -R filebrowser:users /data/archive/common

Now, a startup script:

filebrowser.sh

#!/bin/bash
cd /data/daemons/filebrowser &&
./filebrowser -r /depoisito/archive/common -p 3002 -b /archive/common/ 2>&1 > filebrowser.log

And the usual autostart stuff:

40-filebrowser.start

#!/bin/bash
start-stop-daemon -b -m -p /var/run/filebrowser.pid -n filebrowser -u filebrowser /data/daemons/filebrowser/filebrowser.sh

Make both files executable.

Now, reverse proxy is simple, but this into /etc/nginx/folders/filebrowser.conf:

filebrowser.conf

  location /archive/common/ {
        client_max_body_size 512M;
 
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3002;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
 
        proxy_set_header Connection $http_connection;
        proxy_set_header Connection 'upgrade';
        proxy_cache_bypass $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    }

and put this file include inside the usual /etc/nginx*/folders/main.conf, and restart nginx.

filebrowser.sh

source /etc/conf.d/shares
 
BASE_PATH=/deposito/daemons/filebrowser/data
 
for i in $SHARES
do
        SHARE=$(echo $i | cut -d: -f1)
        PORT=$(echo $i | cut -d: -f2)
        OWNER=filebrowser
 
        echo Starting FileBrowser for $OWNER on share $SHARE
        su - $OWNER -c "/deposito/daemons/filebrowser/bin/filebrowser config set --auth.method=noauth -d $BASE_PATH/db/filebrowser_$SHARE.db >/dev/null"
        su - $OWNER -c "/deposito/daemons/filebrowser/bin/filebrowser -r /deposito/$SHARE -p $PORT -b /archive/$SHARE -d $BASE_PATH/db/filebrowser_$SHARE.db -l $BASE_PATH/logs/filebrowser_$SHARE.log 2> $BASE_PATH/logs/filebrowser_${SHARE}_run.log"&
 
        echo Starting WebDAV backend for $OWNER on share $SHARE
done

From users point of view, the common area will be managed by user filebrowser which is designed to run as group users with an umask 550 so that any files uploaded via web browser will be accessible to the normal users.

Of course, each user will need to be part of the users group as well.

You will need a common “archive” folder under /home/common to store some needed stuff.

This folder will need to contain:

• common subfolder, where the common area files will be stored (created in the filebrowser instructions)
• temp/uploads subfolder, required by WebDAV to upload files
• temp/pids subfolder, to store NGINX pids
• temp/tmp subfolder, to store NGINX run files
• logs subfolder, to store NGINX log files
• conf subfolder, where you will store custom NGINX config files for the private areas (and common area too)

Create the folders:

 > mkdir /data/archive
 > mkdir /data/archive/logs
 > mkdir /data/archive/common
 > mkdir /data/archive/temp
 > mkdir /data/archive/temp/pids
 > mkdir /data/archive/temp/tmp
 > mkdir /data/archive/conf
 > chown filebrowser:users -R /data/archive

No need to use third party WebDAV server since NGINX has a pretty solid implementation of it already. Follow the nginx instructions to set NGINX up with WebDAV and PAM auth support.

Now, there is a nasty catch here which stems from using NGINX as WebDAV server… You need to run NGINX as filebrowser user to ensure that the access trough WebDAV will not incur in access permissions errors. Running NGINX as standalone user requires the creation of a specific nginx.conf with some specifics in it.

For consistency, this NGINX config file will be /data/archive/conf/nginx_common.conf:

/data/archive/conf/nginx_common.conf

worker_processes 1;
pid /data/archive/temp/pids/nginx_common.pid;
error_log /data/archive/logs/common_error_log info;
 
events {
        worker_connections 100;
        use epoll;
}
 
http {
        include /etc/nginx/mime.types;
        default_type application/octet-stream;
 
        # These folder MUST be redirected to avoid usage of system wide ones:
        client_body_temp_path  /data/archive/temp/tmp;
        proxy_temp_path  /data/archive/temp/tmp;
        fastcgi_temp_path  /data/archive/temp/tmp;
        uwsgi_temp_path  /data/archive/temp/tmp;
        scgi_temp_path  /data/archive/temp/tmp;
        disable_symlinks off;
 
        keepalive_timeout 75 20;
 
        server {
                server_name 127.0.0.1;
 
                access_log /data/archive/logs/common_access_log;
                location / {
                        root /data/archive/common/;
 
                        dav_methods PUT DELETE MKCOL COPY MOVE;
                        dav_ext_methods PROPFIND OPTIONS;
                        dav_access user:rw group:rw all:r;
 
                        client_max_body_size 0;
                        create_full_put_path on;
                        client_body_temp_path /data/archive/uploads;
                }
                listen 10000;
        }
}

This NGINX server will listen on 127.0.0.1:10000, and you will need to setup a reverse proxy from the main NGINX, by creating the following config file /etc/nginx/folders/webdav.conf:

webdav.conf

location ~ ^/webdav/common {
        rewrite /webdav/common/(.*) /$1 break;
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:10000;
}

and including it into the main NGINX server.

Now, edit the /data/daemons/filebrowser/filebrowser.sh file and add the following line:

nginx -c /deposito/archive/conf/nginx_common.conf -e /deposito/archive/logs/common_error_log

like this:

filebrowser.sh

#!/bin/bash
 
cd /data/daemons/filebrowser &&
nginx -c /data/archive/conf/nginx_common.conf -e /data/archive/logs/common_error_log
./filebrowser -r /data/archive/common -p 3002 -b /archive/common 2>&1 > filebrowser.log

and restart filebrwoser and the main NGINX.

At this point, your common area will be ready and working both on WebDAV and directly via web browser.

To access via browser:

to access via WebDAV clients: