Web File Browser

See also de Treeview instructions and FAQ.

Testing file and directory permissions

WebFileBrowser can show files from both local drives and from network shares (Windows) or mounted drives (Linux,UNIX), but the right permissions must be given to the web server.

If you installed WebFileBrowser and it is not working correctly, it is likely that the problem resides with the setting of the root variable: siteVARrootDir. Entering the pathname of this variable in the browser is a good way to test if the pathname even exists (to check for typos, for example), but doesn't give you any indication of problems with permissions.

When you enter a pathname (for example: \\mymachine\adir) directly in the browser, without going through the web server, you are reading the directory information using the permissions of the current user (the one you used to log on to the local machine.) However, when you put that path in the WebFileBrowser server script, the server will use its own "user" (IUSR_servername for IIS for example).

Setting the right permissions for the Web server is something you should feel comfortable with before you purchase WebFileBrowser. However, if you are a Windows user, and if you installed WebFileBrowser and it is not working properly, there is a simple tool called diagnostics.asp that ships with the product. Open it in a text editor and follow instructions. See also next section.

Permissions - Basic setup

The most common setup for the WebFileBrowser is one where all users see the same tree and where no user authentication (passwords, etc.) is needed. In this case, the only requirement is that the web server must be running under a user that has the right permissions for the directories and files being browsed. For the ASP version, this user is IUSR_servername. For PHP, it is System, or whatever user is associated with the Apache service.

If you are using the ASP version and don't know how to setup file permissions in Windows, here are some further instructions:

You can change file permissions through the Properties of the folder in Windows Explorer or through the Internet Services Manager under Control Panel / Administrative Tools.
To learn more about file permissions enter "file permissions, setting" in Windows Help (in the start menu.)
To learn more about setting permissions with the Internet Services Manager, go to this Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: HOW TO: Configure Web Server Permissions for Web Content in IIS

Advanced setup: different trees for different users

For those cases where the web file browser is deployed on an Intranet, or where different users have different file permissions, some further steps can be taken. With correct settings, the web file browser will open files and folders according to user permissions, and it will show different trees for different users.

The objective is to enable the following sequence of events:

The user enters the Intranet address of the WebFileBrowser application in Explorer or Netscape (or clicks a link.)
The browser asks the page from the server.
The server replies that it needs a username and password.
The browser sends the same information the user had already given when he or she logged in the machine.
The server starts the WebFileBrowser with that user permissions.
The script looks inside the root folder and, given that it is using the user permissions, it only sees the subdirectories that are applicable.
The tree is built for those subdirectories.

In order to share the user's login information with the server, there are settings to be done on the user side and on the server side. These are the two steps for the case where the language is ASP, the server is IIS, and the browser is Internet Explorer:

Configure IIS to make WebFileBrowser a page that requires authentication. Pick either Basic or NT Challenge/Response. (To learn more about IIS authentication check this tutorial or refer to the IIS Server documentation.)
In the Internet Explorer options pick "User Authentication: Automatic logon only in Intranet zone" or "Automatic logon with current username".

ASP: How to find the pathname for siteVARrootDir

If your files are in some company's web-hosting account, you may not know the file-system pathname that is "behind" a given URL, and you will not know what pathname to put in siteVARrootDir. Below is a short script that will help you map URLs into pathnames. Open an editor and copy and paste the following one-line-long ASP script:

<%=Server.MapPath("findpath.asp")%>

Save the file with the name "findpath.asp". When you load this new page in the browser, it will give you the pathname of findpath.asp according to its location in the file system of the web server. If you save "findpath.asp" to the same directory that will be the root of the Web File Browser tree, it should output the pathname you need to put in siteVARrootDir.