Webbox Fileshare

Webbox Fileshare is a Laravel 7.x app for uploading a set of files and generating a randomized, shared link to the files. It is kind of a web-dropbox. The app runs without any database.

Table of contents

Main Features
Installation
Configuration options

Main Features

Simple authentication via a security pin with possible honeypot protection
Uploading files via Vue.js and Dropzone.js
Generation of random storage links using MD5 hashes
Public shared file page with image preview, single file download and zip-download of all files
Fontawesome file icons for corresponding mime types on shared file pages
Scheduled storage cleanup routines
Configurable cleanup frequencies for storage links, e.g. storing for 1 month
Mail support to share the generated link
Localization (currently english and german)
No Database

Installation

Clone or download repository
Install composer packages (production optimized)
Generate app key and storage link
Change directory permissions
Configure cron scheduling
Configure .env file and webserver
Optimize routes, config-cache, views

Download and store webbox-fileshare to /var/www/box

# Set public path
WEBPATH=/var/www/box

# Download from master
cd /tmp
wget -c https://github.com/kingstarter/laravel-webbox-fileshare/archive/master.tar.gz -O -
mv laravel-webbox-fileshare-master $WEBPATH

# Basic configuration
cd $WEBPATH
cp .env.example .env
composer install --optimize-autoloader --no-dev
php artisan key:generate
php artisan storage:link
chown -R www-data public storage

# Cron scheduler
CRONFILE=/etc/cron.d/webbox
[ -f $CRONFILE ] && cp $CRONFILE $CRONFILE.bak
echo "# Run laravel webbox fileshare scheduler" > $CRONFILE
echo "SHELL=/bin/sh" >> $CRONFILE
echo "* * * * * www-data /usr/bin/php $WEBPATH/artisan schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1" >> $CRONFILE

Note: App configurations and optimizations are not included in the script above.

Test scheduler is called by cron

Normally adding a crontab file to /etc/cron.d/ should work without any problems, yet in some cases the system seems not to load the file properly. To test that the cronjob is called, simply add following line for testing purposes:

WEBPATH=/var/www/box
CRONFILE=/etc/cron.d/webbox

# Minutely log a timestamp into /tmp/webbox-test-cron.log
echo "* * * * * www-data /usr/bin/php $WEBPATH/artisan cron:test > /tmp/webbox-test-cron.log" >> $CRONFILE

The cronjob works as expected if the logfile /tmp/webbox-test-cron.log is created (after a minute) and contains a current local or UTC timestamp. In case the cronjob is not loaded, it might be helpful to move the cron command to /etc/crontab:

WEBPATH=/var/www/box
CRONFILE=/etc/cron.d/webbox
CRONTAB=/etc/crontab

# Remove cronfile and move to crontab
rm -f $CRONFILE
echo "* * * * * www-data /usr/bin/php $WEBPATH/artisan schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1" >> $CRONTAB

# Testing crontab is working
echo "* * * * * www-data /usr/bin/php $WEBPATH/artisan cron:test > /tmp/webbox-test-cron.log" >> $CRONTAB

Configuration options

Most important configurations can be handled via the .env file, see .env.example. The main application configuration is stored within config/webbox.php.

Webbox `.env` configurations

.env option	Description	Default value
APP_LOCALE	Localization to use. Short language code should be used, e.g. 'en' / 'de'.	en
APP_AUTH_PIN	General security pin	passw0rd!
SESSION_LIFETIME	Session lifetime in seconds.	1800
HONEYPOT_ENABLED	Activate honeypot field on login screen	true
HONEYPOT_FIELD	Honeypot field name for form input. Should contain a known field name and some random chars.	phone_number_4f3dx
MAX_FILESIZE_MB	Maximum allowed file size in megabytes. Should match also php and webserver config.	256
FOOTER_TEXT	App footer text to display in main application. No footer if text is empty. Can also contain HTML codes.	© 2020 powered by KingStarter GbR
FOOTER_LINK	a-href link used for footer-text	https://kingstarter.de

Additional webbox configurations

Beside the .env options, the selectable storage lifetime (select-field on upload page) can be configured within the config/webbox.php file. The storage_lifetime array has some predefined values that are all Carbon-compatible (simple strings for adding to time-values).

The default_lifetime config option should match one of the given storage_lifetime fields, e.g. 1 month.

Adding mail support

The upload page allows sending emails with the generated storage link. The send-email field on the modal will only appear if a mail driver is configured. Per default, the mail driver field is set to null for deactivating sending emails.

To add mail support, the mail configuration in the .env file needs to be filled. Simplest configuration would be using MAIL_MAILER=smtp as driver. For other possibilities, please refer to the laravel documentation.

kingstarter/laravel-webbox-fileshare