file_server

a self-hostable file backup server, written in rust because crabs are funny

please note that I don't know rust, which makes this project even funnier

why?

Because I wanted to. Seriously though, monetized cloud storage (and cloud storage that harvests your data) is becoming an issue. While convenient, you're willingly submitting your data to be held hostage in the event you don't pay. You also never know where your data is, who is accessing it, and what is being done with it. I wanted to make something for myself to host my data without fear of big brother and others snooping on me or making me pay a fee to access it.

features

This project is still in development, but here is what I want from something like this:

• free (both in cost and free from 3rd party privacy intrusion)
• self-hostable
• lightweight (should be hostable on a cheap device, such as a raspberry pi)
• supports any file type
• supports flexible and powerful search based on file attributes:
  • name
  • user-defined tags (see #30)
  • file type
  • date
• allows for organizing files into folders
• has a well-documented rest api

I've chosen to write this in rust with sqlite for the speed and lightness of both of those technologies. I also thought it'd be a fun project for a language I never got to use but enjoyed the syntax of.

A well-documented api will allow anyone to build their own front end for this without fear of not knowing what they're doing. I plan to also use this project as an opportunity to write an Android-based application for the first time.

building

This project might be able to run on windows, but it is primarily designed to run on a linux installation. No guarantees are made about windows.

For building on linux, gcc is required to build sqlite. You will also need to add the aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu target using the command if you want to cross-compile for a raspberry pi.

rustup target add aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu

Also for cross-compiling to raspi, you will need to install aarch64 gcc. On ubuntu, you can do so with the command

sudo apt install gcc-aarch64-linux-gnu

Running

all features require rabbitmq to be running on your machine. Running docker-compose up in the project root directory will start up a docker with rabbit, and create an admin user with username admin and password admin. To turn off rabbit-related features (such as file previews), set RabbitMq.enabled to false in FileServer.toml

notes

generating file previews requires rabbitmq to be running when this application starts. Timing can vary depending on your device, but here's an example script that can guide you in booting up properly (works great in /etc/rc.local):

sudo rabbitmq-server &
# for lower end hardware, we'll need to wait before listening for a node. This is subject to hardware power
sleep 45
sudo rabbitmqctl await_online_nodes 1 && $(./sudo file_server &) &