Edge FileServer App

An Edge App that will create a Volume for files storage reachable from SFTP, SSH or Web UI File Browser.

Edge FileServer App

Description

Overview

This app will create a Docker Volume named edge-fileserver-storage that can be mounted in other Edge Applications for uploading new files and folders, editing configurations files or simply to access files dynamically in runtime. Operations can be done either by remote connections of any File Manager application through SSH or SFTP Protocols or by using an integrated Web UI reachable on the Edge Device.

Tasks

With edge-fileserver app is it possible to add, edit or remove files and folders from a permanent volume named edge-fileserver-storage. This can be done through different connections such as SFTP, SSH and a Web interface. For more information see the Usage section below.

Another task of this application is to have a common central volume where multiple configurations files are stored and accessible from any containers in other Edge Apps running on same IED. An application example is provided to fully understand how to use this app for connect edge-fileserver-storage volume to other Edge Applications.

See Usage section below for more details about how to use this application.

Requirements

Used Components

OS: Windows or Linux
Docker minimum V18.09
Docker Compose V2.0 – V2.4
Industrial Edge App Publisher (IEAP) V1.2.8
Industrial Edge Management (IEM) V1.2.16
Industrial Edge Device (IED) V1.2.0-56

Prerequisites

Before proceeding to the installation below, you need to build docker-compose file for creating the Docker images described in Build. This can be easily done from this folder with the command below:

docker-compose up -d --build

Installation

You find below the steps required for downloading the pre-compiled app or to creating and install an edge application starting from the source code here provided. Please refer to Documentation for detailed information about Industrial Edge App Development.

Download the App

The edge-fileserver app can be downloaded in .app format using this secure Google Drive link:

edge-fileserver_0.0.9.app

Create new Standalone Application

Open the Industrial Edge App Publisher
Go to Standalone Applications section
Import the docker-compose file using the Import YAML button
The warnings Build (Detail) (services >> edge-fileserver-sftp >> build) is not supported. Build (Detail) (services >> edge-fileserver-browser >> build) is not supported. can be ignored, images are already built in Prerequisites section above.
If needed, set the Reverse Proxy functionality as mentioned below.
If all is correctly setup, click on Review and Validate & Create.

Setup Reverse Proxy for application endpoints

With Reverse Proxy is it possible to create a secured redirect URL based on a common name (e.g. https://my-ied/my-app/) instead of using the standard port redirect provided by Docker applications.

In the application provided, the service will expose the port 22223 for reaching a Web UI where is it possible to manage the files in the volume. For a detailed description of the Reverse Proxy functionality please refer to official Documentation below.

Reverse Proxy will be configured for edge-fileserver-browser service following the steps below:

From the application creation menu, press the edit button of the edge-fileserver-browser service
Go in the Network submenu and find the Reverse Proxy section:

Insert a new reverse proxy configuration using parameters below:

Container Port: 22223
Protocol: HTTP 
Service Name: edge-fileserver/
Rewrite Target: /

Save and exit

Create configuration for the application

With IE is it possible to create custom Configurators with configuration files in formats likes .json, .yaml, .txt and more.

This application permits to dynamically change users that can connect through SFTP or SSH and that can own the edge-fileserver-storage volume by modifying the content of ./cfg-data/users.txt file.

Here the Industrial Edge App Publisher is used to create an Template file for ./cfg-data/users.txt for the configuration of the application. By using this configuration during the installation, the user can eventually edit the users configuration.

Below the steps to create a configuration template via file upload:

Open the Industrial Edge App Publisher
Go to Standalone Applications section
Open the edge-fileserver application
Click on Configurations > Add Configuration
- Enter a name and description
- Enter ./cfg-data/ as host path
- Enter a template name and description
- Browse for the users.txt file created here
- Click Add

Upload application to Industrial Edge Management

You find below a short description on how to publish your application in your IEM.

For more detailed information please see the official Industrial Edge GitHub guide for uploading apps to the IEM.

Connect your Industrial Edge App Publisher

Connect your Industrial Edge App Publisher to your Docker engine
Connect your Industrial Edge App Publisher to your Industrial Edge Managment

Import a Standalone Application in Industrial Edge Management

Create a new Project in the connected IEM or select a existing one
Import the standalone application created above to the selected IEM Project
Press Start Upload to transfer the app to Industrial Edge Managment

Further information about using the Industrial Edge App Publisher can be found in the IE Hub.

Usage

The possible uses of this application are shown below:

Connecting with SFTP Protocol

Connections via SFTP Protocol can be made with some popular SFTP Clients like FIlezilla or WinSCP:

Connect with SFTP Protocol from internal network proxy-redirect:
- sftp://edge-fileserver-sftp:22
Connect with SFTP Protocol from external network:
- sftp://[device-ip-address]:22222

The users that can connect to the storage via SFTP are specified in ./cfg-data/users.txt file. Default user is edge with password edge.

Connecting with SSH Clients

Connecting with SSH Protocol can be made with some popular SSH Clients like PuTTY or direclty from a Linux Console:

Connect with SSH Protocol from external network:
- ssh -p 22222 edge@[device-ip-address]

The users that can connect to the storage via SSH are specified in ./cfg-data/users.txt file. Default user is edge with password edge.

Connecting with FileBrowser Web Ui

Using the FIleBrowser Web UI is it possibile e.g. to create, add, edit or delete files and folders in the edge-fileserver-storage volume.

Connect to WebUI from external network:
- http://[device-ip-address]:22223
Connect to WebUI from external network with proxy enabled:
- https://[device-ip-address]/edge-fileserver/

The default user that can access to WebUI is admin with password admin as mentioned here.

Share Volume with other applications

The main task of this application is to create an easy-to-manage Docker Volume that any containers in other Edge Apps running on same IED can use to read configuration files dynamically, to have a common central point where multiple configurations files are stored and accessible.

In order to integrate the edge-fileserver-storage volume in a new edge application it is necessary to install the edge-fileserver app on the selected IED and then to mount that external volume in the docker-compose file of the new application by specifying the same volume name.

To demonstrate this task, an application example is available in this repository. Here a NodeJS Web App needs to read a JSON config file from the edge-fileserver-storage volume. Below a snippet from docker-compose file of the application example app that show how to mount the external volume and read a file from it:

version: "2.4"

services:
  example-webserver-app-fileserver:
    image: example-webserver-app-fileserver:0.0.1
            # link config file from fileserver mounted volume path to required path for app and start it
    command: bash -c "ln -s /fileserver/2021/my-app/config/my-config.json /opt/app/config/config.json && node /usr/src/app/main.js" 
    volumes:
      - edge-fileserver-storage:/fileserver/ # where the fileserver volume that contains all configuration file is mounted
    ports:
      - 50001:5000
    restart: unless-stopped
    mem_limit: 150mb  # mandatory field for IE
    networks:
      - proxy-redirect  # default IE network

volumes:
  edge-fileserver-storage:
    name: edge-fileserver-storage
    external: true

networks:
  proxy-redirect:
    external: true
    name: proxy-redirect

Please refer to application example documentation for more information.

Build

Here is a short description on how the edge-fileserver app is built and how to eventually adapt it to your custom needs.

This application consist of two microservices:

`edge-fileserver-sftp`

This service is based on atmoz/sftp Docker image. Its an easy to use SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol) server with OpenSSH that you can use to interact with files and folders in edge-fileserver-storage volume.

The Dockerfile copy the set-permission script (as mentioned here that will take care of owning the container folder mounted at edge-fileserver-storage volume for each user specified in ./cfg-data/users.txt. In the Dockerfile it is also copied an edited version of entrypoint from the original entrypoint of atmoz/sftp service. The original version search for a users.conf file, but Industrial Edge App Configurator can handle only json, txt, yaml, csv file format. Here we have adapt the local variable userConfPath to the TXT format. The ports used for SFTP and SSH Connection are 22222 from external networks and 22 from the internal proxy-redirect network.

The default user that can own files and folder in the edge-fileserver-storage volume is edge with password edge and gid:uid=1000:1000. This is provided by ./cfg-data/users.txt file as mentioned here.

The edge-fileserver-storage volume use a subdirectory (/home/edge/storage) of the user provided by ./cfg-data/users.txt that will own all files because the users can't create new files directly under their own home directory, as mentioned here.

`edge-fileserver-browser`

This service is based on filebrowser/filebrowser Docker image. It's a File Manager Web UI for interacting with files and folders on the edge-fileserver-storage volume.

As mentioned in the official FileBrowser site, it is a create-your-own-cloud-kind of software where you can install it on a server, direct it to a path and then access your files through a nice web interface. You have many available features.

The building of the application is based on the official FileBrowser Docker Guide The Dockerfile copy the filebrowser.json configuration file where the storage path /storage, mounted on edge-fileserver-storage volume, is specified. Here it is also specified a new database path, the baseURL for the reverse proxy setup and the port to be used for WebUI.

The port used for Web UI Connection is 22223 from external networks. The default user that can access to WebUI is admin with password admin as mentioned here.

Also, in the Dockerfile the start script is copied for initializing an empty database of the ui configuration and for owning with the first user from the list in ./cfg-data/users.txt file the /storage folder mounted at edge-fileserver-storage volume. Then the filebrowser application is started with /filebrowser command. When a user from WebUI use a file, this needs to be done with a user with same privileges of the users specified in the ./cfg-data/users.txt file, This is handle by su-exec package that is used to run /filebrowser command with the right user,

Documentation

You can find further documentation and help about Industrial Edge in the following links:

Contribution

Thanks for your interest in contributing. Anybody is free to report bugs, unclear documentation, and other problems regarding this repository in the Issues section or, even better, is free to propose any changes to this repository using Merge Requests.

License & Legal Information

Please read the Legal Information.

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
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docs		docs
example		example
src		src
LICENSE.md		LICENSE.md
README.md		README.md

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SiemensIndustrialEdgeITA/edge-fileserver

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