solid-server in Node
solid-server
lets you run a Solid server on top of the file-system. You can use it as a command-line tool (easy) or as a library (advanced).
Solid Features supported
- Linked Data Platform
- Web Access Control
- WebID+TLS Authentication
- Real-time live updates (using WebSockets)
- Identity provider for WebID
- Proxy for cross-site data access
- Group members in ACL
- Email account recovery
Command Line Usage
Install
To install, first install Node and then run the following
$ npm install -g solid-server
Run a single-user server (beginner)
The easiest way to setup solid-server
is by running the wizard. This will create a config.json
in your current folder
$ solid init
Note: If prompted for an SSL key and certificate, follow the instructions below.
To run your server, simply run solid start
:
$ solid start
# Solid server (solid v0.2.24) running on https://localhost:8443/
If you prefer to use flags instead, the following would be the equivalent
$ solid start --port 8443 --ssl-key path/to/ssl-key.pem --ssl-cert path/to/ssl-cert.pem
# Solid server (solid v0.2.24) running on https://localhost:8443/
If you want to run solid
on a particular folder (different from the one you are in, e.g. path/to/folder
):
$ solid start --root path/to/folder --port 8443 --ssl-key path/to/ssl-key.pem --ssl-cert path/to/ssl-cert.pem
# Solid server (solid v0.2.24) running on https://localhost:8443/
How do I get an SSL key and certificate?
You need an SSL certificate you get this from your domain provider or for free from Let's Encrypt!.
If you don't have one yet, or you just want to test solid
, generate a certificate (DO NOT USE IN PRODUCTION):
$ openssl genrsa 2048 > ../localhost.key
$ openssl req -new -x509 -nodes -sha256 -days 3650 -key ../localhost.key -subj '/CN=*.localhost' > ../localhost.cert
Run multi-user server (intermediate)
You can run solid
so that new users can sign up, in other words, get their WebIDs username.yourdomain.com.
Pre-requisites:
- Get a Wildcard Certificate
- Add a Wildcard DNS record in your DNS zone (e.g.
*.yourdomain.com
) - (If you are running locally) Add the line
127.0.0.1 *.localhost
to/etc/hosts
$ solid init
..
? Allow users to register their WebID (y/N) # write `y` here
..
$ solid start
Otherwise, if you want to use flags, this would be the equivalent
$ solid --idp --port 8443 --cert /path/to/cert --key /path/to/key --root ./accounts
Your users will have a dedicated folder under ./accounts
. Also, your root domain's website will be in ./accounts/yourdomain.tld
. New users can create accounts on /api/accounts/new
and create new certificates on /api/accounts/cert
. An easy-to-use sign-up tool is found on /api/accounts
.
How can send emails to my users with my Gmail?
To use Gmail you may need to configure "Allow Less Secure Apps" in your Gmail account unless you are using 2FA in which case you would have to create an Application Specific password. You also may need to unlock your account with "Allow access to your Google account" to use SMTP.
Run the Linked Data Platform (intermediate)
If you don't want WebID Authentication and Web Access Control, you can run a simple Linked Data Platform.
# over HTTP
$ solid start --port 8080 --no-webid
# over HTTPS
$ solid start --port 8080 --ssl-key key.pem --ssl-cert cert.pem --no-webid
Note: if you want to run on HTTP, do not pass the --ssl-*
flags, but keep --no-webid
Extra flags (expert)
The command line tool has the following options
$ solid
Usage: solid [options] [command]
Commands:
init [options] create solid server configurations
start [options] run the Solid server
Options:
-h, --help output usage information
-V, --version output the version number
$ solid init --help
Usage: init [options]
Create solid server configurations
Options:
-h, --help output usage information
--advanced Ask for all the settings
$ solid start --help
Usage: start [options]
run the Solid server
Options:
-h, --help output usage information
--root [value] Root folder to serve (defaut: './')
--port [value] Port to use (default: '8443')
--webid Enable WebID authentication and access control (uses HTTPS. default: true)
--owner [value] Set the owner of the storage (overwrites the root ACL file)
--ssl-key [value] Path to the SSL private key in PEM format
--ssl-cert [value] Path to the SSL certificate key in PEM format
--idp Enable multi-user mode (users can sign up for accounts)
--proxy [value] Serve proxy on path (default: '/proxy')
--file-browser [value] Url to file browser app (uses Warp by default)
--data-browser Enable viewing RDF resources using a default data browser application (e.g. mashlib)
--suffix-acl [value] Suffix for acl files (default: '.acl')
--suffix-meta [value] Suffix for metadata files (default: '.meta')
--secret [value] Secret used to sign the session ID cookie (e.g. "your secret phrase")
--error-pages [value] Folder from which to look for custom error pages files (files must be named <error-code>.html -- eg. 500.html)
--mount [value] Serve on a specific URL path (default: '/')
--force-user [value] Force a WebID to always be logged in (useful when offline)
--strict-origin Enforce same origin policy in the ACL
-v, --verbose Print the logs to console
Library Usage
Install Dependencies
npm install
Library Usage
The library provides two APIs:
solid.createServer(settings)
: starts a ready to use Express app.lnode(settings)
: creates an Express that you can mount in your existing express app.
In case the settings
is not passed, then it will start with the following
default settings.
{
cache: 0, // Set cache time (in seconds), 0 for no cache
live: true, // Enable live support through WebSockets
root: './', // Root location on the filesystem to serve resources
secret: 'node-ldp', // Express Session secret key
cert: false, // Path to the ssl cert
key: false, // Path to the ssl key
mount: '/', // Where to mount Linked Data Platform
webid: false, // Enable WebID+TLS authentication
suffixAcl: '.acl', // Suffix for acl files
proxy: false, // Where to mount the proxy
errorHandler: false, // function(err, req, res, next) to have a custom error handler
errorPages: false // specify a path where the error pages are
}
Have a look at the following examples or in the
examples/
folder
for more complex ones
Simple Example
You can create an solid
server ready to use using solid.createServer(opts)
var solid = require('solid-server')
var ldp = solid.createServer({
key: '/path/to/sslKey.pem',
cert: '/path/to/sslCert.pem',
webid: true
})
ldp.listen(3000, function() {
// Started Linked Data Platform
})
Advanced Example
You can integrate solid
in your existing Express
app, by mounting the solid
app on a specific path using lnode(opts)
.
var solid = require('solid-server')
var app = require('express')()
app.use('/test', solid(yourSettings))
app.listen(3000, function() {
// Started Express app with ldp on '/test'
})
...
Logging
Run your app with the DEBUG
variable set:
$ DEBUG="solid:*" node app.js
solid
Locally
Testing Pre-Requisites
In order to really get a feel for the Solid platform, and to test out solid
,
you will need the following:
-
A WebID profile and browser certificate from one of the Solid-compliant identity providers, such as databox.me.
-
A server-side SSL certificate for
solid
to use (see the section below on creating a self-signed certificate for testing).
While these steps are technically optional (since you could launch it in HTTP/LDP-only mode), you will not be able to use any actual Solid features without them.
Creating a certificate for local testing
When deploying solid
in production, we recommend that you go the
usual Certificate Authority route to generate your SSL certificate (as you
would with any website that supports HTTPS). However, for testing it locally,
you can easily generate a self-signed certificate for whatever domain you're
working with.
For example, here is how to generate a self-signed certificate for localhost
using the openssl
library:
solid --webid --port 8443 --cert ../localhost.cert --key ../localhost.key -v
Note that this example creates the localhost.cert
and localhost.key
files
in a directory one level higher from the current, so that you don't
accidentally commit your certificates to solid
while you're developing.
Accessing your server
If you started your solid
server locally on port 8443 as in the example
above, you would then be able to visit https://localhost:8443
in the browser
(ignoring the Untrusted Connection browser warnings as usual), where your
solid
server would redirect you to the default viewer app (see the
--file-browser
server config parameter), which is usually the
github.io/warp file browser.
Accessing most Solid apps (such as Warp) will prompt you to select your browser side certificate which contains a WebID from a Solid storage provider (see the pre-requisites discussion above).
/etc/hosts
Editing your local To test certificates and account creation on subdomains, solid
's test suite
uses the following localhost domains: nic.localhost
, tim.localhost
, and
nicola.localhost
. You will need to create host file entries for these, in
order for the tests to pass.
Edit your /etc/hosts
file, and append:
# Used for unit testing solid
127.0.0.1 nic.localhost, tim.localhost, nicola.localhost
Running the Unit Tests
$ npm test
# running the tests with logs
$ DEBUG="solid:*" npm test
In order to test a single component, you can run
npm run test-(acl|formats|params|patch)
Contributing
solid
is only possible due to the excellent work of the following contributors:
Tim Berners-Lee | GitHub/timbl | Twitter/@timberners_lee | webid |
---|---|---|---|
Nicola Greco | GitHub/nicola | Twitter/@nicolagreco | webid |
Martin Martinez Rivera | GitHub/martinmr | ||
Andrei Sambra | GitHub/deiu | Twitter/@deiu | webid |
Do you want to contribute?
- Join us in Gitter to help with development or to hang out with us :)
- Create a new issue to report bugs
- Fix an issue
Have a look at CONTRIBUTING.md.
License
MIT