Deployments

PyFileBrowser

Introducing pyfilebrowser, a Python library designed to streamline interactions with filebrowser

This wrapper simplifies integration and automation tasks, enabling seamless interaction with your local file system via filebrowser's web interface.

All the required configuration, settings, and user profiles are loaded using .env files. This provides a more centralized way of handling the configuration and initialization.

pyfilebrowser automatically downloads the system specific executable during startup.

Download custom-built executables

Additionally, custom source (to download binaries) can be configured by specifying the following environment variables

• OWNER - Owner of the GitHub repo.
• REPO - Repository name.
• TOKEN - GitHub repository token.
• VERSION - Version of the release.

also supports the dotenv file .github.env, and prefixes like github, git and filebrowser

For this custom source feature to work, the executable should be uploaded to releases as assets, and follow the naming convention below.

asset naming convention: ${operating system}-{architecture}-filebrowser-{extension}
example: darwin-amd64-filebrowser.tar.gz

Kick Off

Install

python -m pip install pyfilebrowser

Initiate [programmatically]

import pyfilebrowser

if __name__ == '__main__':
    browser = pyfilebrowser.FileBrowser()
    # browser.proxy = True  # [Optional] Enables proxy server to run in parallel
    browser.start()

Initiate [CLI]

pyfilebrowser

Environment Variables

Env vars can either be loaded from .env files or directly passed during object init.

.env files

proxy server

.proxy.env - Loads the proxy server's configuration.

• host str - Hostname/IP for the proxy server. Defaults to socket.gethostbyname('localhost')
• port int - Port number for the proxy server. Defaults to 8000
• workers int - Number of workers used to run the proxy server. Defaults to 1
• debug bool - Boolean flag to enable debug level logging. Defaults to False
• origins List[str] - Origins to allow connections through proxy server. Defaults to host
• allow_public_ip bool - Boolean flag to allow public IP address of the host. Defaults to False
• allow_private_ip bool - Boolean flag to allow private IP address of the host. Defaults to False
• origin_refresh int - Interval in seconds to refresh all the allowed origins. Defaults to None
• error_page FilePath - Error page to serve when filebrowser API is down. Defaults to error.html
• warn_page FilePath - Warning page to serve when accessed from Unsupported browsers. Defaults to warn.html
• rate_limit - Dict/List[Dict] with the rate limit for the proxy server. Defaults to None

origin_refresh allows users to set a custom interval to update the public and private IP address of the host, based on their DHCP lease renewal.
This is specifically useful in cases of long-running server sessions.

filebrowser configuration

.config.env - Loads the server's default configuration. Reference: config

Extra configuration settings can be loaded using a JSON/YAML file. These settings will be merged with the default configuration settings. The filename should be passed as extra_env during object instantiation. Reference: extra_env

filebrowser user profiles

.user*.env - Loads each user's profile specific configuration. Reference: users

Multiple user profiles can be loaded using .user1.env, .user2.env and so on.
User profile's permissions are automatically set based on the admin flag set in the env-var authentication

filebrowser binary/executable

.github.env - Loads GitHub config to download the filebrowser executable/binary.

filebrowser with docker

.container.env - Loads the docker env vars to run filebrowser in a Docker container.

.env files can be placed in a dedicated directory, whose path can be set using the env var SECRETS_PATH before importing pyfilebrowser

Example

Sample directory structure

root (current working directory)
  ├ secrets
  | ├ .config.env
  | ├ .github.env
  | ├ .proxy.env
  | ├ .user1.env
  | ├ .user2.env
  | └ .container.env
  ├ venv/
  └ main.py

Set custom location for secrets [programmatically]

import os

os.environ["secrets_path"] = os.path.join(os.getcwd(), "secrets")

import pyfilebrowser
...

[OR]

Set custom location for secrets [CLI]

export secrets_path="secrets"

pyfilebrowser run

Refer samples directory for sample .env files. For nested configuration settings, refer the runbook

Any configuration changes made in the UI will be lost, unless backed up manually.
Changes should always go through the .env files.

Object level instantiation is also possible, but not recommended

from pyfilebrowser import FileBrowser

if __name__ == '__main__':
    file_browser = FileBrowser(
        user_profiles=[
            {"authentication": {"username": "admin", "password": "admin", "admin": True}},
            {"authentication": {"username": "user123", "password": "pwd456", "admin": False}}
        ]
    )
    file_browser.start()

Object level instantiation might be complex for configuration settings. So it is better to use .env files instead.

Proxy Server

pyfilebrowser allows you to run a proxy server in parallel, which includes a collection of security features and trace level logging information.

Enabling proxy server increases an inconspicuous latency to the connections, but due to asynchronous functionality, it is hardly noticeable.
The proxy server is designed to be lightweight and efficient, however streaming large video files may increase the memory usage at server side, due to multi-layered buffering.

Firewall

While CORS may solve the purpose at the webpage level, the built-in proxy's firewall restricts connections from any origin regardless of the tool used to connect (PostMan, curl, wget etc.)

Due to this behavior, please make sure to specify ALL the origins that are supposed to be allowed (including but not limited to reverse-proxy, CDN, redirect servers etc.)

Brute Force Protection

• The built-in proxy service limits the number of failed login attempts from a host address to three.
• Any more than 3 attempts, will result in the host address being temporarily blocked.
• For every failed attempt (after the initial 3), the host address will be blocked at an incremental rate.
• After 10 such attempts, the host address will be permanently (1 month) forbidden.

Rate Limiter

The built-in proxy service allows you to implement a rate limiter.

Rate limiting allows you to prevent DDoS attacks and maintain server stability and performance.

Brute force protection and rate limiting are reset when the server is restarted.

Coding Standards

Docstring format: Google
Styling conventions: PEP 8 and isort

Release Notes

Requirement

pip install gitverse

Usage

gitverse-release reverse -f release_notes.rst -t 'Release Notes'

Linting

pre-commit will ensure linting, and generate runbook

Requirement

pip install sphinx==5.1.1 pre-commit recommonmark

Usage

pre-commit run --all-files

Pypi Package

https://pypi.org/project/pyfilebrowser/

Runbook

https://thevickypedia.github.io/pyfilebrowser/

License & copyright

© Vignesh Rao

Licensed under the MIT License