Re: Proposal: gnome-user-share

[Alex Graveley <alex beatniksoftware com>]

Hi Alex,

What are you going to do about symlinks to outside directories?

-Alex

On Tue, 2004-11-30 at 16:41 +0100, Alexander Larsson wrote:
> I'd like to propose the gnome-user-share module for inclusion into the
> gnome desktop.
> 
> gnome-user-share is a way to easily transport files between users
> on a network. It works by starting a webdav server on a (random) high
> port which is then published using mDNS. The webdav server just
> exports the ~/Public folder. This means it will show up in the network
> location in Nautilus, or in any mDNS browser that looks 
> for webdav servers.
> 
> This system is not meant to be a way to set up a general file
> server. It will only work while the user is logged in, and I have no
> interest in adding support for sharing other directories. On the
> other hand, its extremely easy to use, requires zero configuration,
> its easy to remember what is shared and hard to forget that something
> is shared.
> 
> The server is started when you enable file sharing in the file sharing
> properties dialog, or when you log in and file sharing is enabled.
> 
> The dav server used is Apache, which has a number of advantages:
> 
> * Its well tested and well supported on all platforms that gnome ship
>   on, and all webdav clients will be tested against it.
> * Its thoroughly reviewed and generally believed to be pretty secure.
>   Plus distributions already ship security updates of it when needed.
> * With the configuration used in gnome-user-share it is very small, and
>   it has very few dependencies in the server process. On my system
>   the httpd process has an RSS of about 2.2 megabyte, which is far less
>   than any gnome app.
> 
> Of course, there is a disadvantage too. We add another dependency to
> the gnome desktop. The apache install on my system takes about 2.6
> megabyte, which I think is ok on modern desktop system (it can
> be packaged smaller too). But I'm sure some people will think this is
> bloat that has no place in a desktop. 
> 
> This really has to be in the desktop module, because it needs some
> integration with gnome-session to autostart the filesharing daemon
> when you log in. Perhaps we could call it an optional part of the
> desktop?
> 
> The code is availible in the cvs module gnome-user-share, and the most
> recent tarball is availible at:
>  ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/sources/gnome-user-share/0.3/
>  
> I've attached the related gnome-session patch to this mail.
> 
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
>  Alexander Larsson                                            Red Hat, Inc 
>                    alexl redhat com    alla lysator liu se 
> He's a scarfaced skateboarding werewolf from the Mississippi delta. She's a 
> virginal hip-hop college professor living on borrowed time. They fight crime! 
> 
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