docServe

NAME

UCD School of Mathematics and Statistics document server

SYNOPSIS

A web based document storage and retrieval system

DESCRIPTION

docServe allows users to upload a file via a web browser to a central storage area. These files can be downloaded by those who have the correct credentials.

MENUS

A non-authenticated user will see a menu offering options to login , Help (that is, view this man page), get a file by id , or display the file index.

Login

Offers a form for the user to login to the system. This uses the linux host for authentication

Get a file by id

id refers to the unique integer assigned to each uploaded file.

View the file index

Prints a list of files. When the user is not logged in, this list is contains only the files which are publicly available. When the user is logged in, all files are listed including those which the user does not have necessary privileges to download.

For each listed file, the file id, title, description, uploader and access type are listed. When a document title is clicked, an information page is returned listing the file's attributes (including the date of upload and the number of times it has been downloaded) and a submenu which contains a link to download the file (see also File Information Submenu below).

If the user is logged in then the logout option in the menu replaces login and the following options are added:

Search

On the Search page, the user can specify a search mask under each of the headings; Uploader, Category, Keyword and Date. An index page of the files matching these search masks (which are ANDed together) is returned.

Upload a file

See below

File Information Submenu

The file information page contains a submenu. Normally the only item is a link to download the file. However if the user happens to be the owner (i.e. uploader) of the document, then this submenu also contains the following options:

Delete

Only the user who uploaded the file (and the system administrator) can remove it. Removing the file deletes it from the host system. The corresponding entry in the docserve SQL table will remain, albeit with a "removed" tag. Thus the file's id will not be reused for any other file.

Change PIN

The user can change the pin number for the file (if the file has PIN access type of course). Useful perhaps if you want to have a number of documents accessible with the same PIN.

Replace with Newer Version

If a document has been updated the owner can delete the old file and add the updated version. However, this leads to a new document id. Selecting this option allows the owner to refresh the file without having to communicate a new document id to downloaders. Other attributes, including the upload date, remain the same as the original.

Uploading a file

A user must be logged in to upload a file. There is no restriction on the file type uploaded, but the size is restricted to a value set in the configuration file.

The user will see a html form offering a file widget to choose the file to upload from her local system, a title for the document, a textfield for keywords and/or description of the file, and a list of access types to choose from.

If left blank, the document title will be set to the filename of the uploaded file. Document title is the field used by docServe when it prints an index of files. However, when downloaded the file will be served with the filename with which it was uploaded. Note that docServe does not identify files internally by filename or document title, so uploading a document with a previously used filename, or reusing a previously used document title,
does no overwrite the previous document.

Keywords/Description has no function just yet but should be used in searches

Access type

The uploader can choose which one of a number of accessibility options the file employs:

Public

Available to anyone. This is equivalent to putting the file on a public web page. Internet search engines will index these files. The file can be linked to from other pages via the URL

http://[hostname]/docserve?id=nn

where nn is the id of the file.

Public (not indexed)

Just like public but does not appear in the listing of publicly available files. Consequently these files will not be seen by googlebots. In essence, anonymous users need to know the document id to fetch the file.

A four digit PIN is generated when the uploader chooses this option. The PIN is offered to the uploader who may share it with whomever. A downloader must provide the PIN before the file is offered. This is not very secure because it is easy to automate a loop through all possible PINs.

Login

Anyone who has logged in may download the file. Thus the file is available to those with an account on the localhost (mathsci.ucd.ie)

Owner

Only the person who uploaded the file can download it.

Flags

The remaining accessibility options relate to flags which are set for the logged in user in the School of Mathematical Sciences database. Thus if the file's access is set as exec then only SMS staff who carry the exec flag in the staff_flags table will be able to download the file.