There are a few software out there, but i like File Browser a lot because it's lightweight, don't get in the way, is flexible and simple to use, but i do not like the default installation method of FileBrowser because it will install system-wide. I will show you how to install in a more customized way.

Create a standard user to host the FileBrowser installation. You will most probably never run it as this user, but always as different users, to allow it manage files owned by those users.

useradd -d /data/daemons/filebrowser -m filebrowser

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
mkdir bin
cd bin
tar xvf ../linux-amd64-filebrowser.tar.gz

That's it!

In addition you might want to create the following .bashrc:

.bashrc

#!/bin/bash

export UMASK=0002
export PATH=$PATH:~/bin

filebrowser config set --auth.method=noauth
filebrowser config set --auth.method=proxy --auth.header=X-My-Header

TBD

Running FileBrowser behind NGINX is easy, this is an example:

filebrowser.conf

  location /filebrowser/ {
        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;
        #proxy_set_header Authorization $remote_user;

    }

Remember to set the correct port as each instance of FileBrowser will have to run with it's own port, and set a reasonable location URL. This setup will also make use of FileBrowser user intergation with Proxy Authentication, if used, by uncommenting the last line.

I assume you want to run it as user myuser.

As a general startup rule, the first time you need to run it once to create the needed configuration files and database, then you want to start it with a script and have it start automatically at boot.

For initial configuration:

su - myuser
/data/daemons/filebrowser/bin/filebrowser -r "/data/MyFiles" -p 3005 -d "/home/myuser/filebrowser.db"

As the starting script, since i use OpenRC, i have written the following init script wihch needs to be dropped to /etc/init.d/filebrowser:

#!/sbin/openrc-run
# Copyright 2024 Willy Garidol
# Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v3
 
depend() {
        need localmount net
}
 
FB_LOG_PATH="/var/log/filebrowser"
FB_SLOT="${SVCNAME#filebrowser.}"
FB_USER=${USER:-${FB_SLOT}}
FB_GROUP=${GROUP:-${FB_SLOT}}
 
description=${DESCRIPTION:-Web based Filebrowser}
pidfile="/run/${RC_SVCNAME}.pid"
command_background=true
command="/data/daemons/filebrowser/bin/filebrowser"
command_args="-r ${FOLDER} -p ${PORT} -b ${BASE_URL} -d ${DATABASE} -l ${FB_LOG_PATH}/${FB_SLOT}/filebrowser.log"
command_user="${FB_USER}:${FB_GROUP}"
 
start_pre() {
        if [ "${FB_SLOT}" != "filebrowser" ]
        then
                test -e "${FB_LOG_PATH}" || mkdir "${FB_LOG_PATH}"
                test -e "${FB_LOG_PATH}/${FB_SLOT}" || {
                        mkdir "${FB_LOG_PATH}/${FB_SLOT}"
                } && chown -R ${FB_USER} "${FB_LOG_PATH}/${FB_SLOT}"
        else    
                ebegin "Error: do not run this script, run a link to it!"
                eend 255
        fi
}

make it executable!

Now, create a file /etc/conf.d/filebrowser.myshare:

BASE_URL="/files/MyFiles"
DATABASE="/homr/myuser/filebrowser.db"
DESCRIPTION="Common web archive"
FOLDER="/data/MyFiles"
GROUP="users"
PORT=3005
USER="filebrowser"

And create the symlink, start it and add to autostart:

ln -s /etc/init.d/filebrowser  /etc/init.d/filebrowser.myshare
rc-update add filebrowser.myshare default
/etc/init.d/filebrowser.myshare start

To add more shares, just create new links to the filebrowser init script and create the associated config file.

Download a new binary release (see link above), replace binary and restart service.