Webmin is superb web panel, however for me it always lacked one feature: file manager.
Webmin has built in file manager that is really good in design and user friendly, however it is written in Java and so is slow and requires additional software on the user side to run.
Googling around did not give any results and I decided to write my own file manager with black jack and … oh whatever
Meet the Filemin - lightweight file manager for webmin, written completely in perl.
For now it is tested and known to work well with Webmin 1.740 under Ubuntu 14.04 and Debian 7, Webmin 1.710 under Arch.
Bug reports and criticism are welcomed
github repo: https://github.com/Real-Gecko/filemin
WARNING! ACHTUNG! ALARM ALARM!!!
Webmin 1.770 is out! Filemin is now in da core. No more need to manually install.
NOTE!!! Fresh installation makes all users able to access Filemin WORK AS ROOT AND SEE WHOLE FILESYSTEM.
PERFORM SECURITY TIGHTENING AFTER UPGRADE AND FRESH INSTALLATION.
I just wanted to mention that I tried out your filemanager – nice work! I’ll send you an email about that shortly, as we’d like to make it easier for you to do additional development.
This is fantastic! I’ve already been playing with it and filing tickets about it, but wanted to chime in on this thread, too, because everybody ought to try it.
I’ve always hated the Java File Manager (or, rather, I hate Java applets, in general…the File Manager is really impressive work, but Java in the browser is a dead end), but this is so nice. Actually, I ignored File Manager so thoroughly (last time I spent any time with it was when I re-did the UI with new icons and stuff about ten years ago) I didn’t even really realize how many people used it until it started being hard to run it because Chrome disables Java, by default.
Thanks, people, for your support. I`ll continue on improving Filemin. Comments and wishes and of course bug reports are welcomed. For me the most improtant thing is bug fixes especially concerning security. It would be great if more people test the module and report
For whatever reason, it choked when I did it that way, so I ended up downloading it and then uploading it using the “Browse…” button on the same form. Dunno why it failed, and was something I meant to track down.
Oh, by the way, you should put up a PayPal donate link or something, just in case anybody feels so excited by the project that they want to contribute somehow.
Also, Jamie and I were talking about the Java File Manager problem, and we will be deprecating the Java File Manager sometime soon-ish and removing it from Webmin. So, since we’ll be needing a replacement, we were wondering if you’d consider re-licensing Filemin under the same BSD license as Webmin so that we could include it in Webmin (GPL is fine for modules distributed separately, which we do with the Virtualmin modules, and GPL is generally my preference for my own development), but for being included in Webmin core it probably needs to be a BSD compatible license, since there are so many embedded users of Webmin who rely on being able to distribute it without any significant encumbrance.
We’d need to spend some time going over the code for security concerns, and would need to add in some of the ACL capabilities that File Manager currently has (i.e. pretty fine-grained file access controls, quite a few additional file attribute capabilities, etc.), but I think Filemin already does what 95% of people use File Manager for, and that’s awesome! Since Webmin has about a million installations (seriously!), we’d have to proceed with caution, but Filemin is really the best thing going for addressing this problem!
Sure, changing license is not a problem. I’ll put the same one that’s used by Webmin.
And I think it is time for me to review Java File Manager features and think about implementing to Filemin those not included yet, so that people would not miss something they used to.
Security code review would be great. I’m trying to do my best to keep things secure, however as it is said “A problem shared is a problem halved”, so any help would be great
That`s one of the reasons I’ve still not implemented symlinks handling - to prevent users poking around filesystem.
when I run the filemin it goes to my home folder, is it possible to navigate to the root ie. main filesystem folder?
can you add this feature ?
good idea ?
as my server is headless, I would like to do some things within webmin. and I might need to navigate to folder other than my home folder. I mean my user is full admin so shouldn’t I have access to whole system?
Latest version lets root to go anywhere in the filesystem, but blocks all other users in their home.
I’m planning to implement ACL to make this thing more flexible.
I am login in as a user with admin rights, the one was created at install.
ubuntu does not have root user enabled by default.
I will try enableing it thanks.
well it’s true that the process is easy.
although I have seen instructions for Ubuntu that involve a few more steps to be done than that.
also it took me a few tries to realize what was happening.
I still think that this file manager is tons better than Java based that is currently in use. I can’t wait until Webmin guys replace the old fm with this one. it’s much faster and works much better.
however I do have much more pressing matters at the moment to worry about it. my whole install is not working so, I am out of here for a while to find the solution for it.
still have to say GOOD JOB and THANKS for all your work.
Hi there, very nice addition. I stumbled into the Java issues just like everybody and tried this one.
I would like to suggest a monospace font for the edit_file.cgi screen. I have been using Java File Manager a lot for quick edits and it helps a lot to have such a font (Courier, Lucida Console or other) so that you can see the proper character alignments.
A donate button somewhere would be attractive for me too ;-).
