PrivThingServer

Simple Web server to serve PrivThing and also allow it to work on files from specified folders on current system

General

This is node web server which serves webcontent from client/build folder and also handles API /actions

client/build folder contains built PrivThing website - if you want to modify it - PrivThing can be found in separate repository here - https://github.com/Sznapsollo/PrivThing

How to setup

• download repository
• go to repository folder
• run npm install to install all node dependencies
• edit config.json (details in next section) to specify which folders and what kind of files you want to use in PrivThing
• run manually by executing node app.js
• this will start webserver at port specified in config.js file which by default is 888
• so served content should be available under http://localhost:8888

config.json config properties

• filesFolders - list of folders files from which will be listed in hosted privThing
• extensions - only files with these extensions will be listed. "." is required

Enable using server in PrivThing to see shared files

• open PrivThing http://localhost:8888
• go to Settings (menu icon top-right corner) and mark the following setting Enable file server & save
• 

API

PrivThingServer handles simple api to retrieve list of files and also to update files - api is handled by actions route (http://localhost:8888/actions)

Actions api expects post request with body object with type property (example: {type: "getListOfFiles"}). Currently the following types are handled

• getListOfFiles - lists files from folders (folders and accepted file extensions are configured in config.json)
• retrieveFileFromPath - retrieves file from specified path (has to be path allowed in config.json)
• updateFileFromPath - updates file with content (file has to be of path allowed in config.json)

Can also create as service

• Create service file - lets name it for example privThingService.service with the following content (placement of node might be different in your case)

[Unit]
Description=ListingFilesServer for PrivThing
After=network.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/home/[youruser]/node/current-node/bin/node /home/[youruser]/[yourfolder]/app.js
Restart=always
User=youruser
 
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

• copy service to service

sudo cp privThingService.service /etc/systemd/system/privThingService.service

• Reload daemon

systemctl daemon-reload

• Enable service

sudo systemctl enable privThingService.service

• Start service

sudo systemctl start privThingService.service

• Other helpuf commands

sudo systemctl stop privThingService.service
sudo systemctl status privThingService.service