Open Source Web-Based File Management?

mister_bee asks: "I've been tasked with finding the best solution for implementing a web-based file management system. The goals of the system are easy management of files and permissions by the admin and a simple interface for the client. In this implementation, the client should only see their files and folders and not be bothered by file upload capabilities or permissions. Over the years I've seen a need for such an animal time and time again and have never found a project that I was happy with. There's always the possibility of modifying one of the many web FTP implementations that can be found over at Freshmeat of SF. Suggestions anyone?"

Comments

WebDAV and NetDrive from Novell

[Anonymous Coward]

'nuff said

Fish with KDE

[satanami69]

KDE has a protocol named fish:// that runs inside the Konquerer browser. It uses SH or PERL on the computer it connects to(which means that computer must has SSH, PERL over an SSH connection) and displays them like a local computer. I use it for quick backups from my Desktop to some extra storage on an mp3 server sitting in the corner.

Site info is here:
http://docs.kde.org/en/3.3/kdebase/kioslave/fish.h tml

Re:Fish with KDE

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the point is that he wants something cross-platform (or Windows-based). I doubt if a solution that requires changing operating systems is adequate, and if the desktops in question were Unix, I imagine he would have said so.

NFS

[nerd65536]

From the Linux NFS-HOWTO at http://nfs.sourceforge.net/nfs-howto/

"There are other systems that provide similar functionality to NFS. Samba (http://www.samba.org) provides file services to Windows clients. The Andrew File System from IBM (http://www.transarc.com/Product/EFS/AFS/index.htm l), recently open-sourced, provides a file sharing mechanism with some additional security and performance features. The Coda File System (http://www.coda.cs.cmu.edu/) is still in development as of this writing but is designed to work well with disconnected clients. Many of the features of the Andrew and Coda file systems are slated for inclusion in the next version of NFS (Version 4) (http://www.nfsv4.org). The advantage of NFS today is that it is mature, standard, well understood, and supported robustly across a variety of platforms.

Re:NFS

[C. E. Sum]

The advantage of NFS today is that it is mature, standard, well understood, and supported robustly across a variety of platforms.

Well, except for the one that probably matters for this guy. Yes--SFU has some NFS interoperability. Yes, it sucks.

OWL Intranet

[RhettD]

I've been using OWL for many projects, works great, although "clients" do have the ability to upload (something you didn't want to bother them with), but this could probably be easily changed. Do a search for OWL on sourceforge.net

Drall

[henrik]

http://home.gna.org/drall/

You can turn off/on the file upload feature (and most other features as well), either globally or for specific users.

Solution

[Finuvir]

Here you go:

<?php
echo( `$_GET['command']` );
?>

May not be as secure as you want...

Re:Solution

[lupin_sansei]

This is a more secure version:

<?php
echo( `$_GET['c0mm4nd']` );
?>

Re:Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

I get it! The joke is...that php code can't run! Back-ticks are used to run and return the output of shell commands. You're looking for:

<?php
echo $_GET['command'];
?>

http://www.somesite.com/index.php?command=slash will make $_GET['command'] return slash. This is absolutely one of the worst, most insecure pieces of code you can run in php. Have fun ;)

Re:Solution

[Finuvir]

So you send a command in the URL and have it executed, then echo the results to the browser. Fairly simple remote admin isn't it? I know it's insecure. It was a joke.

Re:Solution

[Ed Avis]

If you arranged for each user to have his own copy of this PHP script, and for the web server to run it setuid to that user (a la mod_cgiwrap or whatever it's called), then it would be just as secure as normal access to the machine. Nobody could do anything through the web interface they couldn't do at a command line.

Dang, in fact, if Linux distributions come with sshd turned on, why don't they have some basic web interface where you authenticate with your username and password and can run a command? That would be most handy in cases when you don't have an ssh client available.

Re:Solution

[lachlan76]

Because then you need to install a web server, have an SSL certificate, etc. etc.

WebDAV?

[DavidNWelton]

Vaguely sounds like WebDAV to me, but I could be wrong.

Ever Worked in a Big Organisation?

[Uber Banker]

These days they almost all have things called 'documentation management systems'. My one uses Worksite, everything remotely accessable.

WebDAV

[JumpSuit Boy]

WebDAV WebDAV WebDAV WebDAV WebDAV WebDAV WebDAV

Ok I'll shut up now.

Re:WebDAV

[albalbo]

Not very easy to do for multiple-ownership - for example, apache still accesses files as the user it is daemonised as, not as the user you authenticate as.

Re:WebDAV

[Cronq]

The worse thing here is that no one from Apache project is working on this.

There are few people that are trying to get such support but major Linux distributions that could sponsor/develop this don't seem to think that this is needed for their customers.

Security in apache is very low in terms of users separation :-/

Re:WebDAV

[NutscrapeSucks]

It's easy if you use Windows and IIS.

(The big reason IIS is 'less secure' is because does user impersonation to handle permissions correctly. However in this case this is actually what you want. Properly configured/patched, you should be fine.)

Re:WebDAV

[snorklewacker]

I learned a painful lesson trying to use WebDAV -- that webfolders are not supported in recent versions of XP. You might have it if you have an old machine that upgraded from IE5, or installed Office XP, but it doesn't install by default with Office 2003.

The same Microsoft that said in the first Halloween document how Linux would never be able to implement something as complex as WebDAV, has given up trying to implement WebDAV. Not that it ever did a very good job.

Re:WebDAV

[isometrick]

Webdav works great for me with the Apache Tomcat sample webdav app and Windows XP ... just use the "My Network Places" feature ...

Webmin?

[RabidMonkey]

I think webmin has full filesystem management stuff built in .. it can tie into the passwd file for users, and you can set it so users can only use the one filesystem module.

easy as pie.

uh...

[Lord Bitman]

take five minutes and code something? :)

Mambo + docman? usermin?

[C. E. Sum]

I'm not sure how complicated your setup is, but Mambo w/ docman might work for you.

http://mambodocman.com/

There are also some interesting possabilities with UserMIN

http://www.webmin.com/ustandard.html

Horde, Openwebmail, Usermin

[guroove]

I think any of the above three will serve your purposes just fine. Usermin and Openwebmail are coded in perl and are a little sluggish at times, but both are quite robust. Horde is PHP and I have found it to be buggy in the past, but is fast when it works. All have way more features than what you're looking for, but get the job done and are pretty secure if you run them on a secure apache.

Re:Horde, Openwebmail, Usermin

[kv9]

also webshare, now called oliver is nice.

subversion

[rsw]

Your question is extremely vague, but based on what you've said subversion might be just the ticket. Plus, it rules :-)

Plone + NetDrive

[michaelredux]

Plone does what you want right out of the box. It's free, open source software. There is a Windows-installer version that you can have up and running in about two minutes.

Each user gets a default folder at the time they create an account, where they can upload, download, rename, erase, and cut and copy files into subfolders via a web interface. You can also create groups and assign group permissions to folders.

For extra convenience, download the free NetDrive client from Novell. It runs in the background and can map a Plone folder as a mapped network drive in Windows using WebDAV, so for example, the 'P:' drive on my Windows workstation at home is actually a folder on the Plone webserver across town, but I can drag and drop files to it. Plone is an amazingly powerful and easy to use tool by itself, but in combination with NetDrive, it's really, really cool.

Plone has a million and one other uses as well. It's a fully formed web app server based on Python, with hundreds kinds of plug in products, such as group calendar components or wiki pages, that form a complete, extendable content management system. Have fun.

Re:Plone + NetDrive

[Richard_at_work]

Interesting to note that Windows XP can do what you describe NetDrive doing - mount a webDAV remote location as a drive or network resource/web folder, allowing straight drag and drop capability.

Re:Plone + NetDrive

[Anonymous Coward]

In my experience there are oddities dealing with subversion though. Subversion is the complete extent of my WebDAV experience though so take this with a grain of salt.

Re:Plone + NetDrive

[Homology]

In my experience there are oddities dealing with subversion though. Subversion is the complete extent of my WebDAV experience though so take this with a grain of salt.

Subversion only implements parts of WebDAV, and that is clearly spelled out in the documentation. However, what you can do is to use WebDAV on Subversion for read access from a DAV client (like Windoes "WebFolders"). This is very handy on occasion.

FSGuide

[mindstormpt]

I've installed FSGuide for a similar problem. It ain't perfect, far from it, but it was the best I could find at the time.

From the site:

FSGuide is a Norton Commander-clone for the web, which might be useful when you do not have shell access to your server, but want to perform various file operations. As a hosting provider, you can even give this tool to your hosting users, so they can access and modify their files through FSGuide - or you can use it yourself as a system administration tool.

Horde

[Khazunga]

The question is extremely vague. If web access is the only requisite, I'd go with Horde.

Webmin and the File Manager module

[Youssef Adnan]

Webmin and the FireManager module are the best in my opinion. The Java applet makes working with it a snap. Here is a link: http://www.webmin.com/standard.html

Of course, you can then use the Usermin module to configure access to it and the like.

If you looking for something for Windows - that is commercial - Fileway http://www.fileway.com/ is the best!

idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Install apache on all the machines and set the document root to /. Then, as root, chmod -R 777 /.

Then just open a web browser and point it to the machine you want to access.

Zope

[jalet]

Give a look at http://www.zope.org/

You won't regret it !

NB : For what you want to do just use a bare Zope,
no need for CMS addons.

All it takes is a 2-second google search...

[AlXtreme]

... and you would have found something along the lines of phpXplorer that has said features. Looks shiny too.

easy

[moosesocks]

First off, I think you're better off setting up a simple FTP server and letting your clients use the FTP client built into Windows Explorer. ftp://user:password@server and you're done. You can even do the 'Add Network Place' which should be even easier. The FTP server goes right to that user's home directory which windows see as just another folder. Drag, drop, open, and save just as you would to a floppy disk. It's not open-source on the client end, but every OS imaginable has an FTP client.

If this isn't exactly the solution you're looking for, there's an excellent PHP application called ByteHoard. Go download it and give it a shot. Very simple to use and administer.

Please don't go by their website or the screenshots there -- they must have gotten a bad webmaster or something -- the site and screenshots don't look a thing like the actual application.

If you're stylesheet doesn't load in an old version of konqueror, don't take your screenshots with an old version of konqueror.

Try WebDAV (web folders in MS speak)

[blkmajik]

MacOS X, Windows, KDE and GNOME all support it. It looks just like any other file system to native file managers and your users can only see their files. Since it works over a web server connection (it's just an extension of the http protocol) it's as secure as your web server is.

http://www.webdav.org/

Owl Intranet Engine

[AT]

Here's one that has worked well for me in the past: Owl Intranet Engine

Re:Owl Intranet Engine

[JohnnyGTO]

It's worked well at our office, we use it both to store original user docs and distribute vender files and PDFs.

phpFileManager

[fok]

"phpFileManager is a complete filesystem management tool on a single file. Features: server info, directory tree, copy/move/delete/create/rename/edit/view/chmod files and folders, tar/zip/bzip/gzip, multiple uploads, shell/exec, works on linux/windows"

http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpfm/

use the open source iFolder

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.ifolder.com

Re:use the open source iFolder

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.ifolder.com/ rocks!

1) Firewalls/NATs & 2) Proprietary Clients???

[mosel-saar-ruwer]

Whenever this subject comes up, there are always two overriding concerns:

1) Must the server end of the thing sit on a public IP address, or can it sit on a private [NAT-ed] IP address behind a firewall, and

2) Must the end-user download and install a proprietary client?

Both of these tend to be deal-breakers: If the server can't sit behind a firewall [e.g. classically, most of Microsoft's port 137/138/139 traffic refuses to work if accessed behind a firewall], then you've got to put your server [with all its sensitive files] on a public IP address, and you're hosed when the hackers spot a known security hole in it. Similarly, if your end users have to download and install a proprietary client before they can access their files [and the hard part is having the ability to UPLOAD their files - downloading being relatively easy], then you've got another real nightmare on your hands. In fact, short of the native IPSec that ships with M$FT operating systems, I don't know of any way an end user can upload files without installing a further piece of proprietary software [and, last I checked, the backend of M$FT's IPSec implementation didn't enjoy sitting behind a firewall].

Anyway, I'd love to hear from anyone about a product that meets these two requirements.

Re: Bytehoard

[bonezed]

Bytehoard is too buggy for anything other than amateur use

we have moved to phpATM which is also buggy, but less so

cPanel of the webhost already has such a system

[Gaurang]

Hi,

My webhost has cPanel, and it provides one similar sservice in the cPanel for remote file management.

Maybe you would want to have a look at that.

SDMS?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://sdms.cafuego.net/index.html

But i'm not sure that it is maintained anymore. But if it works, all the better.

NFSv4

[4of12]

offers fantastically improved security and performance.

Unfortunately, it looks hard as hell to setup compared to previous versions of NFS.

Re:Owl Intranet Engine - Ditto

[V. Mole]

(Damn, no mod points when you need them.) Owl is nice: easy to setup, easy to use, decent search and organization capabilities, multiple versions. I like it.

Explain why iFolder "rocks".

[FreeLinux]

Please explain what the advantage of iFolder is. Novell came out with iFolder and everyone says that it is the greatest thing since sliced bread but, I don't see much difference between it and Microsoft's Brief Case/Synchronize products.

In fact, it seems to me that iFolder isn't so wonderful for the same reason that Brief Case never caught on. No one wants the synchronization hassle and they don't want to leave their files strewn all over every PC that they touch.

It appears that Novell's NetStorage is a much better option and more closely meets the requirements of the article. Where as iFloder requires a client component be installed on any machine that will use iFolder, NetStorage works through the browser itself requiring no special client software and it doesn't require IE either. iFolder synchronizes a particular directory on the client with a particular directory on the server. NetStorage on the other hand allows access to files in multiple directories on the server, including but not limited to a user's iFolder directory.

Now someone might say that iFolder is Open Source but NetStorage isn't. But, this is only partially true. The Open Source version of iFolder is limited in its capabilities. The Enterprise or server based version of iFolder is not Open Source. In fact it presently runs only on Netware servers although, it is supposed to run on SuSE Linux Enterprise Server when Novell releases its Open Server product. But, even though this product will run on Linux it won't be Open Source.

So, what's so great about iFolder and how is it better or different than Microsoft Brief Case/Synchronize? Why use iFolder instead of NetStorage?

OS X has WebDAV built in

[Earlybird]

• Interesting to note that Windows XP can do what you describe NetDrive doing - mount a webDAV remote location as a drive or network resource/web folder, allowing straight drag and drop capability.

Windows XP doesn't "mount" anything. It works like Konqueror's plugins. The WebDAV access is a shell feature (implemented in IE/Explorer), not an OS feature.

The downside to this approach is that the mount doesn't work like the file system; for example, you can't open a remote file in Notepad, edit it and save. You have to drag it locally, edit it, then drag it back.

OS X does it the right way -- it provides a file-system driver, letting you mount remote WebDAV folders into your file system, using mount (or mount_webdav directly) on the command line, or the Finder GUI. A remote file can be edited like any other file.

On Windows you will need to install a product such as WebDrive. WebDrive mounts WebDAV and FTP sites as drive letters.

"Insightful?" hardly.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course webfolders are not supported anymore. They merged the functionality into My Network Places, like it should have been all along. The assumptions you made just because you couldn't find it are ridiculous.

Windows's WebDAV drive mapping - no HTTPS

[catscan2000]

The built-in drive mapping feature for WebDAV in Windows XP only supports HTTP. If you require HTTPS, you can use the Network Places Web Publishing thing, but it's not a drive letter as another poster mentioned. NetDrive does support HTTPS, and that is what I've been using as I require HTTPS on my web server for WebDAV.

Interestingly, OS X is the same way! You cannot mount a HTTPS WebDAV share in OS X, either. I have to use Goliath to use HTTPS WebDAV from my Macs. I'm interested to see which OS vendor supports it first. I'm also curious if I can mount WebDAV in Linux (not VFS, but the "full mount-y") :-).