filebrowser — Linux

filebrowser is supported on Docker, Linux, macOS, and Windows. Previous post discussed how to run filebrowser in Docker, now it's all about Linux.

Alpine

The default is ash, not bash. Install bash and edit your user (not root) in /etc/passwd, then reboot for the change to take effect. Edit the get.sh.

Add bash and curl to an Alpine VM/CT

doas apk update && doas add curl bash

⚠️ Alpines default shell is ash and the script uses bash.

doas nano /etc/passwd

Reboot the VM

Download

Download the script and make it executable

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/filebrowser/get/master/get.sh
doas chmod +x get.sh

Edit the get.sh

Edit the get.sh -script line 42 and change sudo → doas.

nano get.sh

Now install filebrowser on the VM by executing doas ./get.sh.

Initialize the config — option

filebrowser config init

Add a directory command

The directory you will control with filebrowser, e.g., /exports for a nfs NAS.

doas filebrowser -r /exports

Add user

You can do it from the browser after login as admin or from CLI interface.

filebrowser users add <user> <password>

Startup script

nano startFILEBROWSWER.sh

startFILEBROWSWER.sh#!bin/bash
# Start filebrowser if Stopped
TARTED=`ps -s |grep  'filebrowser --port 8080' | wc -l`
# echo "$TARTED" # testing logic
if [ $TARTED -gt 1 ]; then
   echo "running"
  else
    echo "Stopped - restarting..."
    /usr/local/bin/filebrowser --port 8080 -a 192.0.2.40 -r /exports/
fi

chmod 700 startFILEBROWSWER.sh
doas ./startFILEBROWSWER.sh

Ubuntu

Here's how to create a systemd service.

nano /etc/systemd/system/filebrowser.service

[Unit]
Description=Filebrowser
After=network-online.target

[Service]
User=root
Group=root

ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/filebrowser -r /exports

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Start / Stop filebrowser service

• Reload: systemctl --user daemon-reload
• Start: systemctl start filebrowser
• Stop it: systemctl stop filebrowser

This method is safer than keeping it always running but needs the user to start filbrowser manually.

Run as a daemon ⚠️

• Keep it running: systemctl enable filebrowser
• Disable: systemctl disable filebrowser

LAN only: Only listening on a LAN is still a little dangerous.
Only start up filbrowser when you need it.

Start by script

This method is safer than keeping it always running but requires the user to start filbrowser manually.

You need to run the script as root or sudo.

nano startFILBROWSER.sh

# Start filebrowser if stopped

LOG="/root/filebrowser.log.`date +%d%m%Y`"

echo "Delete log files older than 7 days" >>$LOG
     /usr/bin/find /root/filebrowser.log.* -type f -mtime +7 -exec rm -v {} \;
echo "Started `date`" >>$LOG

TARTED=`ps -s |grep  'filebrowser --port 80' | wc -l`
# echo "$TARTED" # testing logic
if [ $TARTED -gt 1 ]
    then
        echo "running"
     else
         echo "stopped"
         /usr/local/bin/filebrowser --port 80 -a 192.0.2.50 -r /exports/
fi
echo "Stopped `date`" >>$LOG

Create the filbrowser.json file

Place the configuration file, filebrowser.json, in /etc/ or where you have the db.

nano /etc/filebrowser.json

{
  "port": 8080,
  "baseURL": "",
  "address": "192.0.2.22",
  "log": "stdout",
  "database": "/etc/filebrowser.db",
  "root": "/var/www/html"
}

Upload files using SCP

Go to a directory you like to upload all files from and do
scp *.* <user>192.0.2.80:/home/<user>/<directory>/

References

filebrowser ^[1] Note for Alpine ^[2]