File Server - Ajaxplorer - upgrade issues

I'm trying to deploy the Turnkey File Server appliance, which includes the AjaXplorer file browser. The intent is to use this as a sort of private cloud proxy to file shares on our Windows file servers (which are joined to an AD infrastructure). I also need to figure out the LDAP auth, but that's a separate issue :)

Anyways, I have deployed File Server using the OVF template to an ESXi 4.1 host successfully. I am able to boot up the VM, set the passwords, login to AjaXplorer, etc. I'm also able to create repositories in AjaXplorer, setup users, and all the other expected stuff...

The problems arise when I try to upgrade AjaXplorer. In order to use the built-in upgrade button in AjaXplorer, the installation files and folders must be writeable. However, if I review the current permissions throughout the installation hierarchy, I see that permissions vary throughout.

I tried changing permissions to 0x755 at the root folder of the installation (propogated to subfolders too) and I was able to then perform the upgrade. However, it would take forever to go through the folder hierarchy again and revert the permissions post upgrade. Also, for whatever reason, propogating 0x755 permissions throughout the hierarchy actual broke AjaXplorer - it will no longer run.

Perhaps I need to use APT to upgrade AjaXplorer? There's nothing in the build notes to indicate how AjaXplorer was installed (i.e. from APT repository, or from ZIP file downloaded from AjaXplorer website).

Any assistance is much appreciated!

Replies (5)

File Server - Ajaxplorer - upgrade issues

Reply 1 2013-02-09

Can no one offer advice on how to upgrade AjaXplorer on the Turnkey File Server appliance?

I don't know for a fact

Reply 2 2013-02-09

But I suspect that it was installed from upstream zip file, beyond that I have no idea (without testing myself).

Rather than setting permissions to 755, you could try giving the webserver account ownership (although I'm not sure on the longer term implications of that) but it may alleviate your current issues? Only thing is that IIRC Ajaxplorer runs under LigHTTPd and I'm not very familiar with it (I know Apache runs as www-data and I would assume that other wbservers would too, but I don't know for sure).

Sorry, it's not a lot, but it's all I got...!

Thanks for the kind comment

Reply 3 2014-09-22

One of the reasons I've chosen to contribute to the TurnKey community was the warm reception I received when I joined and the willingness of the admins to accept suggestions from a relative n00b. Not all FLOSS communities share this spirit of openness.

I asked about the status of the fileserver appliance because I'm currently working on a media-server appliance based on Plex. I have it running experimentally on an upgraded ownCloud appliance, but I'm finding I miss some of the features of Samba, probably because I've been using it for years while ownCloud is a new beast.

Version 1.0 of Open Media Vault (OMV) was just released and it looks very interesting, although I have not yet tried to install a copy. Although it runs on Debian, it is already a complete NAS appliance with many plugins including one for Plex. OMV seems targeted for building a standalone NAS server including raid management. My use case is for a virtual appliance running on ProxMox with raid management done in hardware.

My choices for the Plex media-server boil down to:

Upgrade the fileserver to the latest version of Pydio, replacing LigHTTPd with Apache2 and SQLite with MySQL, then use this as a base for the media-server, or
Base the media-server on the upgraded ownCloud appliance, adding Samba, NFS, and Plex

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Not that I'm aware of John

Reply 4 2014-09-19

But it's definitely something we'll need to do. It won't be of any help to you in upgrading, but for v13.1 Fileserver I guess we jsut do a clean install from scratch. I'm not sure how we'll go migrating existing user credentials and shares though (for users using TKLBAM to move from an older version to v13.1).

BTW - Great work on your other contributions too! You're definitely a star community member! :)

Is anyone working on

Reply 5 2014-09-18

Is anyone working on upgrading from AjaXplorer to Pydio for the 13.1 release? I tried both the manual and automatic upgrade methods, but neither worked. The manual directions were written for mysql and I think the automatic gui update failed because it expected Apache2, not LigHTTPd.