File Server

Access to a common area (future: also user-specific private areas).

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

File Browser is used for web based access from browser.

Apache is used as WebDAV server.

NGINX is used as reverse proxy to provide secure access to both WebDAV clients and browsers.

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.

While there are a few WebDAV servers like Dave, they seems to be either unmaintained or overly complicated. Also NGINX can be a WebDAV server, but it seems to be buggy and not supporting LOCK stuff, so i decided to go with Apache web server, which also has a long standing WebDAV implementation.

The idea here is to run a dedicated copy of Apache as user filebrowser and group users so that it can access and manage the shared files. So first you need to emerge apache:

 > emerge apache

WebDAV is enabled by default in Gentoo Apache ebuild.

Running apache manually requires some effort, so, buckle up.

First of all, Apache needs some folders to operate, so you need to create:

• /data/daemons/filebrowser/data/conf: to store the apache config file
• /data/daemons/filebrowser/data/roots: which will map as WebDAV root (you will see why)
• /data/daemons/filebrowser/data/locks: which will be used for WebDAV lock databases
• /data/daemons/filebrowser/data/pids: which will be used to store apache PID files

 > su - filebrowser
 > mkdir /data/daemons/filebrowser/data/conf
 > mkdir /data/daemons/filebrowser/data/root

Then create the Apache config file for each share. You should create this config that will be used by each share /data/daemons/filebrowser/data/conf/apache_global.conf:

apache_global.conf

ServerRoot "/usr/lib64/apache2"
LoadModule actions_module modules/mod_actions.so
LoadModule alias_module modules/mod_alias.so
LoadModule auth_basic_module modules/mod_auth_basic.so
LoadModule authn_anon_module modules/mod_authn_anon.so
LoadModule authn_core_module modules/mod_authn_core.so
LoadModule authn_dbm_module modules/mod_authn_dbm.so
LoadModule authn_file_module modules/mod_authn_file.so
LoadModule authz_core_module modules/mod_authz_core.so
LoadModule authz_dbm_module modules/mod_authz_dbm.so
LoadModule authz_groupfile_module modules/mod_authz_groupfile.so
LoadModule authz_host_module modules/mod_authz_host.so
LoadModule authz_owner_module modules/mod_authz_owner.so
LoadModule authz_user_module modules/mod_authz_user.so
LoadModule autoindex_module modules/mod_autoindex.so
<IfDefine CACHE>
LoadModule cache_module modules/mod_cache.so
</IfDefine>
LoadModule dav_module modules/mod_dav.so
LoadModule dav_fs_module modules/mod_dav_fs.so
LoadModule dav_lock_module modules/mod_dav_lock.so
LoadModule deflate_module modules/mod_deflate.so
LoadModule dir_module modules/mod_dir.so
LoadModule env_module modules/mod_env.so
LoadModule expires_module modules/mod_expires.so
LoadModule ext_filter_module modules/mod_ext_filter.so
<IfDefine CACHE>
LoadModule file_cache_module modules/mod_file_cache.so
</IfDefine>
LoadModule filter_module modules/mod_filter.so
LoadModule headers_module modules/mod_headers.so
<IfDefine HTTP2>
LoadModule http2_module modules/mod_http2.so
</IfDefine>
LoadModule include_module modules/mod_include.so
<IfDefine INFO>
LoadModule info_module modules/mod_info.so
</IfDefine>
LoadModule log_config_module modules/mod_log_config.so
TransferLog /deposito/archive/logs/common_transfer_log
LoadModule logio_module modules/mod_logio.so
LoadModule mime_module modules/mod_mime.so
LoadModule mime_magic_module modules/mod_mime_magic.so
LoadModule negotiation_module modules/mod_negotiation.so
LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so
LoadModule setenvif_module modules/mod_setenvif.so
<IfDefine STATUS>
LoadModule status_module modules/mod_status.so
</IfDefine>
LoadModule unique_id_module modules/mod_unique_id.so
LoadModule unixd_module modules/mod_unixd.so
<IfDefine USERDIR>
LoadModule userdir_module modules/mod_userdir.so
</IfDefine>
LoadModule usertrack_module modules/mod_usertrack.so
LoadModule vhost_alias_module modules/mod_vhost_alias.so
Include /etc/apache2/modules.d/*.conf

Then you can create one config file for each share. This is the file for the common share /data/daemons/filebrowser/data/conf/common.conf:

common.conf

Include /data/daemons/filebrowser/data/conf/apache_global.conf
 
User filebrowser
Group users
 
DavLockDB "/data/daemons/filebrowser/data/locks/common"
PidFile /data/daemons/filebrowser/data/pids/common.pid
ErrorLog /data/daemons/filebrowser/data/logs/common_error_log
TransferLog /data/daemons/filebrowser/data/logs/common_transfer_log
CustomLog /data/daemons/filebrowser/data/logs/common_access_log common
 
DocumentRoot /data/daemons/filebrowser/data/roots
 
ServerName 127.0.0.1
Listen 127.0.0.1:10001
 
<Directory /data/daemons/filebrowser/data/roots>
    DAV On
    AllowOverride All
    Options -Indexes +FollowSymlinks -ExecCGI -Includes
    Require all granted
</Directory>
 
SetEnv redirect-carefully
 
# vim: ts=4 filetype=apache

Please note the Listen directive: you want apache to be bound to 127.0.0. only and note the port too, this port will be needed for the reverse proxy. Each share will need it's own port.

Now, the fun part is that you want to protect this behind the NGINX reverse proxy and it seems that WebDAV does not play well with URL redirection and similar funny things. In other words, the base url you will be using on the reverse proxy must match the url in the Apache. You cannot use rewrite directives or Alias stuff.

Since you will be exposing the browser-based access as https://your_server/archive/common and the WebDAV access as https://your_server/webdav/common it means that we need to connect your /home/common folder to /data/daemons/filebrowser/data/roots/webdav/common for it to work. Since symbolic links cannot be used by WebDAV, the only viable option is mount -o bind which needs to be done by root.

so, create the paths first:

 > su - filebrowser
 > cd data/root
 > mkdir webdav
 > cd webdav
 > mkdir common

the startup script below will take take of doing the mount -o bind which is mandatory for WebDAV to work.

You want to integrate all this into the SSL enabled reverse proxy, which is also using PAM authentication.

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

filebrowser.conf

  # Browser based access here
  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;
    }
    # WebDAV access
    location /webdav/common {
        # https://mailman.nginx.org/pipermail/nginx/2007-January/000504.html - fix Destination: header
        # https://trac.nginx.org/nginx/ticket/348 - bug, workaround with named capture
        set $dest $http_destination;
        if ($http_destination ~ "^https://(?<myvar>(.+))") {
                set $dest http://$myvar;
        }
 
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:10001;
        proxy_redirect off;
        proxy_buffering off;
        gzip off;
        proxy_pass_request_headers on;
        proxy_set_header Destination       $dest;
        proxy_set_header      Host $host;
        proxy_set_header      X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header      X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
}

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

Create the /data/daemons/filebrowser/fileserver.sh:

fileserver.sh

source /etc/conf.d/shares
 
BASE_PATH=/data/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 "/data/daemons/filebrowser/bin/filebrowser config set --auth.method=noauth -d $BASE_PATH/db/filebrowser_$SHARE.db >/dev/null"
        su - $OWNER -c "/data/daemons/filebrowser/bin/filebrowser -r /deposito/$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 Mounting WebDAV entry points for $SHARE
        mount -o bind /home/$SHARE /data/daemons/filebrowser/data/roots/webdav/$SHARE
        echo Starting WebDAV backend for $OWNER on share $SHARE
        su - $OWNER -c "apache2 -f /data/daemons/filebrowser/data/conf/$SHARE.conf"
done

And the usual autostart stuff:

40-filebrowser.start

#!/bin/bash
/data/daemons/filebrowser/fileserver.sh

Make both files executable.

To access via browser: open https:<your server>/archive/common to access via WebDAV clients: https:<your server>/webdav/common

Please note that using HTTP here might cause a 301 redirect to HTTPS, and WebDAV clients will fail. So use HTTPS URL in webdav clients.