Hotfolder Plugin

The hotfolder is a special directory in easydb. Inside this directory all files will be automatically inserted inside your easydb. To configure an hotfolder on user sight, see collection. This article is about the administrator sided hotfolder configuration.

Release of the working directory

The working directory, in which the hotfolder will be reachable must be released with operating system means. Normally this will be done by WebDAV. Other options like FTP or SMB are also possible but not described here.

Configuration of WebDAV

WebDAV requires an Apache web server connected in front of the Docker containers, as described in configuration of Apache2/HTTPS

First of all your should activate the Apache module

a2enmod dav_fs

The hotfolder directory should exist and accessible by apache. To ensure the webserver has access to the folder, change the owner of the directory to www-data:

mkdir -p /media/hotfolder
chown www-data. /media/hotfolder

Following configurations are necessary for the working directory (/media/hotfolder as example). Some options in VirtualHost were removed to ensure this listing stays small enough.

<VirtualHost *:443>
    AliasMatch ^/upload(.*)$ /media/hotfolder$1
    <Location /upload>
        ProxyPass "!"
        <LimitExcept POST PUT DELETE MKCOL COPY MOVE>
            Require all granted
        </LimitExcept>
        <Limit POST PUT DELETE MKCOL COPY MOVE>
            Require all denied
        </Limit>
        DAV on
        Options -MultiViews
        ErrorDocument 404 "Not Found"
        ErrorDocument 500 "Internal Server Error"
        ErrorDocument 502 "Bad Gateway"
    </Location>
    <LocationMatch /upload/collection/[^/]+/[^/]+/.*>
        Require all granted
        DAV on
        Options -MultiViews
        ErrorDocument 404 "Not Found"
        ErrorDocument 500 "Internal Server Error"
        ErrorDocument 502 "Bad Gateway"
    </LocationMatch>

    ProxyPass / http://127.0.0.1:80/
    ProxyPassReverse / http://127.0.0.1:80/
</VirtualHost>

easydb-server configuration

easydb-server creates subdirectories for each released collection inside the above mentioned working directory. Because hotfolder is a plugin, you have to activate it.

plugins:
  enabled+:
    - base.hotfolder

Server YAML Variables to configure the Hotfolder

hotfolder:
  directory: /srv/easydb/webdav
  urls:
    - type: windows_webdav
      url: \\master.pf-berlin.de@SSL\upload\collection
      separator: \

Variable	Type	Required	Description
`hotfolder`	List	No	Parent element which contains the configuration for easydb’s hotfolder
⇨`enabled`	`bool`	Yes	If the Hotfolder is enabled on this Server (default: `false`)
⇨`directory`	`string`	Yes	Path of the local Hotfolder to check for files
⇨`urls`	List	Yes	List of URL Configurations:
⇨⇨`type`	`string`	Yes	Type of the Hotfolder URL: one of `"windows_webdav"`, `"webdav_http"`
⇨⇨`url`	`string`	Yes	URL of the WebDAV Folder
⇨⇨`separator`	`string`	Yes	Separator Token that is used in the URL (default: `/`)
⇨`delay`	`int`	No	Time in seconds between each check for new files in the Hotfolder (default: `10`)
⇨`number_of_workers`	`int`	No	Number of Worker Instances, currently ignored, only one worker is implemented
⇨`upload_batches`	`bool`	No	`true`: upload the generated objects generated from files in the Hotfolder in batches; `false`: upload single objects (default: `false`)
⇨`upload_batch_size`	`int`	No	Number of Objects to be uploaded in the same batch (default: `10`, ignored for `upload_batches = false`)

Frontend localization for URL types

The frontend localizations for different types of hotfolder URLs can be added to the localization files in server/base/l10n. For each type in urls, a new localization can be added:

"server.base.hotfolder.urls.type.<type>": "URL Type"

where <type> is the configured URL type.

The server already supports localizations for the following URL types:

Type windows_webdav: “Windows Explorer”
Type mac_finder: “Mac Finder”
Type webdav: “WebDAV”
Type webdav_http: “Browser (WebDAV)”

Example Configuration

We assume that your easydb uses https.

The following configuration can be placed into e.g. /srv/easydb/config/easydb-server.yml:

hotfolder:
  enabled: true
  urls:
    - type: windows_webdav
      url: \\easydb.example.com@SSL\upload\collection
      separator: \
    - type: mac_finder
      url: https://easydb.example.com/upload/collection
      separator: /
    - type: webdav
      url: https://easydb.example.com/upload/collection
      separator: /

plugins:
  enabled+:
    - base.hotfolder

The above mentioned url is the common windows format webdav-url. In this example the easydb is accessable by https://easydb.example.com.

To use the /hotfolder inside the easydb-server-container you have to allow the access to the hotfolder-workingdirectory (/media/hotfolder). This must be configured inside the start-script:

docker run -d -ti \
	--name easydb-server \
	…
	--volume=/media/hotfolder:/hotfolder \
	docker.easydb.de/pf/server-$SOLUTION