openmediavault-filemanager plugin For OMV8

The openmediavault-filemanager plugin is a native file manager for openmediavault 8. It is built entirely on the openmediavault workbench (the regular web interface), so there is no Docker container, no separate application and no iframe. Files are browsed, edited and managed in the same tables and dialogs as the rest of openmediavault.

Features:

• Browse shared folders as a list (with a .. row) or as a lazy-loading tree. The current location is shown in the breadcrumb.
• Recursive search by name with wildcards.
• Create folders and empty files, rename, copy and move (also between shared folders).
• Change permissions and owner, optionally recursively.
• Edit text files in the built-in code editor.
• Upload files of any size, download single files, and download folders or several items as one ZIP archive.
• Preview images, PDFs, audio, video and text files in a new browser tab.
• Compress to ZIP or tar.gz and extract archives.
• Properties (type, MIME type, owner, mode, ACLs, recursive size) and checksums (MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-512).
• Trash compatible with the Samba recycle bin, with restore.
• Audit log of every change.
• Optional access for non-administrative users based on the shared folder privileges.

Questions about the plugin should be posted in the omv-extras section of the openmediavault forum.

Bugs and feature requests can be reported on the GitHub issue tracker.

• openmediavault 8 with omv-extras installed.
• At least one shared folder (Storage | Shared Folders). The file manager only works inside shared folders; it can not browse the rest of the file system.

• Go to System | Plugins.
• Search for openmediavault-filemanager, select it and click the Install button.
• When the installation is finished, reload the web interface (F5 or Ctrl+Shift+R).

The plugin is now available under Services | File Manager.

Services | File Manager | Settings

Click Save after changing settings. No Apply is needed.

Services | File Manager | Shared folders lists the shared folders available in the file manager, with their comment and your access (Read/Write or Read-only).

• Click the name of a shared folder (or select it and click Open) to browse it as a list.
• Browse as tree shows the shared folder as an expandable tree. Folders are loaded when they are expanded.
• Upload files uploads files to the top level of the shared folder.
• Search searches the whole shared folder.
• Trash opens or empties the trash of the shared folder.
• The link icon Docs opens this page.

The list view shows the type, name, size, modification time and permissions of every item. The Owner and Link target columns are hidden by default and can be shown with the column chooser of the table.

• Click a folder name to open it. The .. row goes up one level; at the top level it leads back to the list of shared folders.
• Click a file name to open it in a new browser tab. Files the browser can not show are downloaded instead.
• The breadcrumb at the top shows the shared folder and the current location.
• The search field of the table only filters the items of the current folder. Use the Search button for a recursive search.

Symbolic links are shown with their target. Links that point to a missing target are shown as Broken link.

Select one or more items and use the toolbar buttons. Buttons that do not apply to the selection are disabled.

Long running actions (copy, move, compress, extract, recursive permission/owner changes, checksums) run in a progress dialog that shows the output. Items that fail are listed at the end; the other items are still processed.

New files and folders (created, uploaded, copied, extracted) inherit the owner, group and mode of the folder they are created in instead of being owned by root. This keeps them accessible over SMB, NFS and other services the same way as the rest of the shared folder.

Text files up to the Editor size limit can be edited in the code editor.

• Binary files and files that are not UTF-8 encoded are refused.
• Saving is atomic: the file is written to a temporary file and then replaces the original, keeping its owner, mode and ACLs.
• If the file was changed by someone else after it was opened in the editor, saving is refused so that changes are not overwritten. Reopen the file and make the change again.

Upload files opens an upload page in a new browser tab. Select or drop one or more files there.

• Files are sent in chunks, so there is no size limit from the web server.
• Partially uploaded files carry the suffix .fmpart until they are complete. Abandoned partial files are removed automatically after 24 hours.
• Close the upload tab when done and reload the folder view to see the new files.

Previews open in a new browser tab. The type is chosen by the file extension:

Whether a video or audio file actually plays depends on the codecs the browser supports. All other files are downloaded.

Compress creates a ZIP or gzipped tar archive (.tar.gz) of the selected items in the current folder. All selected items must be in the same folder. Symbolic links are stored as links in tar archives.

Extract supports these formats:

• .zip
• .tar
• .tar.gz / .tgz
• .tar.bz2 / .tbz / .tbz2
• .tar.xz / .txz
• .tar.zst / .tzst

The archive is always extracted into a new folder next to it, named after the archive. If that name is taken, a number is appended, e.g. photos (1). Existing files are never overwritten.

The search finds files and folders whose name contains the search text, case-insensitive. The wildcards * (any characters) and ? (one character) are supported, e.g. *.mkv or IMG_20??. At most 1000 results are shown. Search from the list of shared folders to search a whole shared folder, or from a folder to search only that folder and its subfolders.

When Use trash is enabled, deleted items are moved to .recycle/<user>/<original path> inside the shared folder. This is the same layout the Samba recycle bin uses (.recycle/%U with keeptree), so items deleted with the file manager and items deleted over SMB with the recycle bin enabled end up in the same place.

• Open trash shows the .recycle folder of the shared folder.
• Select items in the trash and use Trash | Restore to move them back to their original location. Restoring fails if an item with the same name already exists there.
• Empty trash permanently deletes all items in the trash of the shared folder after confirmation.
• Delete permanently skips the trash.

The trash is not emptied automatically. Empty it regularly or delete old items from it, otherwise it keeps using space on the drive.

When Allow access is enabled, users that are allowed to log in to the openmediavault web interface get a File Manager entry in their navigation.

• Users only see the shared folders for which they have Read-only or Read/Write privileges in Storage | Shared Folders | Permissions (or via one of their groups). A user privilege takes precedence over group privileges; a group set to No access denies access.
• Like with SMB, the file system permissions and ACLs apply as well. Commands run as the user, with their groups, not as root. A user can only open, change or delete what they could also access over SMB.
• Uploading and all other changes require Read/Write privileges and the global Read-only setting must be off.
• Changing permissions and owners is restricted to administrators.
• The Shared folders setting also limits what users can see.

Note that a user must be able to log in to the web interface for this to work. See the openmediavault documentation on users and the web interface for details.

When Audit log is enabled, every change (create, upload, rename, copy, move, delete, restore, edit, permission and owner change, compress, extract, empty trash, settings change) as well as downloads and previews are written to the system journal with the user, the action and the affected path.

The log can be viewed under Diagnostics | System Logs, by selecting File Manager from the log type dropdown.

• “The file manager is disabled.” - Enable it in Services | File Manager | Settings.
• “The file manager is not available for non-administrative users.” - Enable Allow access in the settings.
• “The shared folder is not available …” - The shared folder is not selected in the Shared folders setting.
• “Permission denied: …” - For non-administrative users, the file system permissions or ACLs do not allow the action. Check the permissions with Properties, or use the openmediavault-resetperms plugin to reset the permissions of the shared folder.
• “… is a binary file …” / “… is not UTF-8 encoded …” - The editor only supports UTF-8 text files. Download the file and edit it locally.
• “The file is larger than … MiB …” - Increase the Editor size limit or download the file.
• “… was changed by someone else …” - The file was modified after it was opened in the editor. Reopen it and make the change again.
• New items do not appear - Reload the folder view after uploading in the other browser tab.
• A video preview does not play - The browser does not support the codec of the file. Download it and play it locally.

• Go to System | Plugins, select openmediavault-filemanager and click the Remove button.

Removing the plugin does not touch any files in the shared folders. The .recycle folders stay in place and can be deleted manually or over SMB if they are not needed anymore.