solid-server in Node

Solid server in NodeJS

solid-server lets you run a Solid server on top of the file-system. You can use it as a command-line tool (easy) or as a library (advanced).

Solid Features supported

• Linked Data Platform
• Web Access Control
• WebID+TLS Authentication
• Real-time live updates (using WebSockets)
• Identity provider for WebID
• Proxy for cross-site data access
• Group members in ACL
• Email account recovery

Command Line Usage

Install

To install, first install Node and then run the following

$ npm install -g solid-server

Run a single-user server (beginner)

The easiest way to setup solid-server is by running the wizard. This will create a config.json in your current folder

$ solid init

Note: If prompted for an SSL key and certificate, follow the instructions below.

To run your server, simply run solid start:

$ solid start
# Solid server (solid v0.2.24) running on https://localhost:8443/

If you prefer to use flags instead, the following would be the equivalent

$ solid start --port 8443 --ssl-key path/to/ssl-key.pem --ssl-cert path/to/ssl-cert.pem
# Solid server (solid v0.2.24) running on https://localhost:8443/

If you want to run solid on a particular folder (different from the one you are in, e.g. path/to/folder):

$ solid start --root path/to/folder --port 8443 --ssl-key path/to/ssl-key.pem --ssl-cert path/to/ssl-cert.pem
# Solid server (solid v0.2.24) running on https://localhost:8443/

How do I get an SSL key and certificate?

You need an SSL certificate you get this from your domain provider or for free from Let's Encrypt!.

If you don't have one yet, or you just want to test solid, generate a certificate (DO NOT USE IN PRODUCTION):

$ openssl genrsa 2048 > ../localhost.key
$ openssl req -new -x509 -nodes -sha256 -days 3650 -key ../localhost.key -subj '/CN=*.localhost' > ../localhost.cert

Run multi-user server (intermediate)

You can run solid so that new users can sign up, in other words, get their WebIDs username.yourdomain.com.

Pre-requisites:

• Get a Wildcard Certificate
• Add a Wildcard DNS record in your DNS zone (e.g.*.yourdomain.com)
• (If you are running locally) Add the line 127.0.0.1 *.localhost to /etc/hosts

$ solid init
..
? Allow users to register their WebID (y/N) # write `y` here
..
$ solid start

Otherwise, if you want to use flags, this would be the equivalent

$ solid --idp --port 8443 --cert /path/to/cert --key /path/to/key --root ./accounts

Your users will have a dedicated folder under ./accounts. Also, your root domain's website will be in ./accounts/yourdomain.tld. New users can create accounts on /api/accounts/new and create new certificates on /api/accounts/cert. An easy-to-use sign-up tool is found on /api/accounts.

How can send emails to my users with my Gmail?

To use Gmail you may need to configure "Allow Less Secure Apps" in your Gmail account unless you are using 2FA in which case you would have to create an Application Specific password. You also may need to unlock your account with "Allow access to your Google account" to use SMTP.

Run the Linked Data Platform (intermediate)

If you don't want WebID Authentication and Web Access Control, you can run a simple Linked Data Platform.

# over HTTP
$ solid start --port 8080 --no-webid
# over HTTPS
$ solid start --port 8080 --ssl-key key.pem --ssl-cert cert.pem --no-webid

Note: if you want to run on HTTP, do not pass the --ssl-* flags, but keep --no-webid

Extra flags (expert)

The command line tool has the following options

$ solid

  Usage: solid [options] [command]

  Commands:
    init [options]    create solid server configurations
    start [options]   run the Solid server

  Options:
    -h, --help     output usage information
    -V, --version  output the version number


$ solid init --help

  Usage: init [options]
  Create solid server configurations

  Options:
    -h, --help  output usage information
    --advanced  Ask for all the settings


$ solid start --help
  Usage: start [options]
  run the Solid server

  Options:
    -h, --help              output usage information
    --root [value]          Root folder to serve (defaut: './')
    --port [value]          Port to use (default: '8443')
    --serverUri [value]     Solid server uri (default: 'https://localhost:8443')
    --webid                 Enable WebID authentication and access control (uses HTTPS. default: true)
    --owner [value]         Set the owner of the storage (overwrites the root ACL file)
    --ssl-key [value]       Path to the SSL private key in PEM format
    --ssl-cert [value]      Path to the SSL certificate key in PEM format
    --idp                   Enable multi-user mode (users can sign up for accounts)
    --proxy [value]         Serve proxy on path (default: '/proxy')
    --file-browser [value]  Url to file browser app (uses Warp by default)
    --data-browser          Enable viewing RDF resources using a default data browser application (e.g. mashlib)
    --suffix-acl [value]    Suffix for acl files (default: '.acl')
    --suffix-meta [value]   Suffix for metadata files (default: '.meta')
    --secret [value]        Secret used to sign the session ID cookie (e.g. "your secret phrase")
    --error-pages [value]   Folder from which to look for custom error pages files (files must be named <error-code>.html -- eg. 500.html)
    --mount [value]         Serve on a specific URL path (default: '/')
    --force-user [value]    Force a WebID to always be logged in (useful when offline)
    --strict-origin         Enforce same origin policy in the ACL
    -v, --verbose           Print the logs to console

Library Usage

Install Dependencies

npm install

Library Usage

The library provides two APIs:

• solid.createServer(settings): starts a ready to use Express app.
• lnode(settings): creates an Express that you can mount in your existing express app.

In case the settings is not passed, then it will start with the following default settings.

{
  cache: 0, // Set cache time (in seconds), 0 for no cache
  live: true, // Enable live support through WebSockets
  root: './', // Root location on the filesystem to serve resources
  secret: 'node-ldp', // Express Session secret key
  cert: false, // Path to the ssl cert
  key: false, // Path to the ssl key
  mount: '/', // Where to mount Linked Data Platform
  webid: false, // Enable WebID+TLS authentication
  suffixAcl: '.acl', // Suffix for acl files
  proxy: false, // Where to mount the proxy
  errorHandler: false, // function(err, req, res, next) to have a custom error handler
  errorPages: false // specify a path where the error pages are
}

Have a look at the following examples or in the examples/ folder for more complex ones

Simple Example

You can create an solid server ready to use using solid.createServer(opts)

var solid = require('solid-server')
var ldp = solid.createServer({
    key: '/path/to/sslKey.pem',
    cert: '/path/to/sslCert.pem',
    webid: true
})
ldp.listen(3000, function() {
  // Started Linked Data Platform
})

Advanced Example

You can integrate solid in your existing Express app, by mounting the solid app on a specific path using lnode(opts).

var solid = require('solid-server')
var app = require('express')()
app.use('/test', solid(yourSettings))
app.listen(3000, function() {
  // Started Express app with ldp on '/test'
})
...

Logging

Run your app with the DEBUG variable set:

$ DEBUG="solid:*" node app.js

Testing solid Locally

Pre-Requisites

In order to really get a feel for the Solid platform, and to test out solid, you will need the following:

1. A WebID profile and browser certificate from one of the Solid-compliant identity providers, such as databox.me.

2. A server-side SSL certificate for solid to use (see the section below on creating a self-signed certificate for testing).

While these steps are technically optional (since you could launch it in HTTP/LDP-only mode), you will not be able to use any actual Solid features without them.

Creating a certificate for local testing

When deploying solid in production, we recommend that you go the usual Certificate Authority route to generate your SSL certificate (as you would with any website that supports HTTPS). However, for testing it locally, you can easily generate a self-signed certificate for whatever domain you're working with.

For example, here is how to generate a self-signed certificate for localhost using the openssl library:

solid --webid --port 8443 --cert ../localhost.cert --key ../localhost.key -v

Note that this example creates the localhost.cert and localhost.key files in a directory one level higher from the current, so that you don't accidentally commit your certificates to solid while you're developing.

Accessing your server

If you started your solid server locally on port 8443 as in the example above, you would then be able to visit https://localhost:8443 in the browser (ignoring the Untrusted Connection browser warnings as usual), where your solid server would redirect you to the default viewer app (see the --file-browser server config parameter), which is usually the github.io/warp file browser.

Accessing most Solid apps (such as Warp) will prompt you to select your browser side certificate which contains a WebID from a Solid storage provider (see the pre-requisites discussion above).

Editing your local /etc/hosts

To test certificates and account creation on subdomains, solid's test suite uses the following localhost domains: nic.localhost, tim.localhost, and nicola.localhost. You will need to create host file entries for these, in order for the tests to pass.

Edit your /etc/hosts file, and append:

# Used for unit testing solid
127.0.0.1 nic.localhost, tim.localhost, nicola.localhost

Running the Unit Tests

$ npm test
# running the tests with logs
$ DEBUG="solid:*" npm test

In order to test a single component, you can run

npm run test-(acl|formats|params|patch)

Contributing

solid is only possible due to the excellent work of the following contributors:

Tim Berners-Lee	GitHub/timbl	Twitter/@timberners_lee	webid
Nicola Greco	GitHub/nicola	Twitter/@nicolagreco	webid
Martin Martinez Rivera	GitHub/martinmr
Andrei Sambra	GitHub/deiu	Twitter/@deiu	webid

Do you want to contribute?

• Join us in Gitter to help with development or to hang out with us :)
• Create a new issue to report bugs
• Fix an issue

Have a look at CONTRIBUTING.md.

License

MIT