vaneDisk Overview and installation instructions
-----------------------------------------------

Welcome to vaneDisk, your self-hosted file sync and share solution.

vaneDisk is open source file sync and share software for everyone from
individuals operating the free Community Edition, to large enterprises and
service providers operating vaneDisk Enterprise Edition. vaneDisk
provides a safe, secure and compliant file sync and share solution on
servers you control.

With vaneDisk you can share one or more folders on your PC, and sync
them with your vaneDisk server. Place files in your local shared
directories, and those files are immediately synced to the server, and then
to other PCs via the desktop client. Not near a desktop client? No
problem, simply log in with the web client and manage your files there. The
Android and iOS mobile apps allow you to browse, download and upload photos
and videos. On Android, you may also create, download, edit and upload any
other files, with the correct software installed.

Whether using a mobile device, a workstation, or a web client, vaneDisk
provides the ability to put the right files in the right hands at the right
time on any device in one simple-to-use, secure, private and controlled
solution. After all, with vaneDisk, it's Your Cloud, Your Data, Your
Way.


The Various Elements of vaneDisk
--------------------------------
vaneDisk comes in three different Editions, with desktop clients and mobile
apps available as add-ons.

The three editions are: 
- Community Edition: the free, unsupported, open source version of vaneDisk.
  This is the same server software that is included in Business and
  Enterprise Edition, it is just provided unsupported under AGPL license. It
  includes the server side application and the built in web client.
- Business Edition: the certified and supported vaneDisk server provided
  under AGPL license (support provided by vaneDisk, Inc.), including the
  desktop clients and intended as a starter pack for small businesses, or as
  a PoC for large businesses or service providers.
- Enterprise Edition: the certified and supported vaneDisk server provided 
  under AGPL or vaneDisk license, including desktop clients and mobile apps,
  available in increments up to an unlimited number of users, and intended
  as an enterprise or service provider offering.

While there are three different Editions of vaneDisk, the vaneDisk server is
open source, and is essentially the same in all three offerings. This
installation guide is designed for installation of the vaneDisk server,
a part of all three vaneDisk Editions.

For more information on vaneDisk Editions, please visit vaneDisk.com/overview.


vaneDisk is a Web Application
-----------------------------
vaneDisk is a web based application that is intended to provide access to
files. As such, understand that once you take an vaneDisk instance live, it
must be maintained as you would any other website or server. This means
keeping up with patches to the web server, PHP, your database, as well as
updates to vaneDisk itself. Active monitoring of the application and logs
are recommended, SSL connections are a good idea for security reasons, and a
local server soft firewall is just smart - and in most cases part of the
default server setup. Be thorough with vaneDisk and your web server, and you
will have the secure file, sync and share solution you are looking for for
many years to come.


Prerequisites
-------------
vaneDisk requires a webserver, PHP5 and a database to operate. We support
Apache, though it is possible to run vaneDisk on Microsoft's IIS on Windows
7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 via FastCGI. vaneDisk recommends Apache and
PHP5, for performance and overhead reasons. For databases, we support
SQLite, MySQL, and PostgreSQL. See "Choosing the Database" for more
information on which database to choose.


Installation Scale
------------------
vaneDisk is simple to install with a little technical know-how, and
depending on your situation, can be installed in minutes. However, before
installing vaneDisk, it is important to understand what it is. vaneDisk is a
PHP based web application, so you also need to install PHP5 and Apache2. You
can install vaneDisk on Linux, Windows and Mac servers, as well as in
virtual machine(s), where you install the application is entirely dependent
on the scale of your operations.

vaneDisk is highly flexible software, supporting small to massive
implementations. For small installations, you can install all of vaneDisk on
an old desktop or workstation, on a single server, or inside a single
virtual machine. For mid-sized installations, you can separate the app and
database server to enhance security and improve scalability, and add a
second app server and MySQL server for redundancy. At the large end of the
installation spectrum, you may have a load balancer out front of many
vaneDisk application servers, with a database cluster, and network attached
storage on the back end, enabling massive scalability and performance tuning
for your instance. 

For the purposes of this document, the assumption is made that a small to
mid sized installation is the desired outcome, either for personal use, or
as a demo, proof of concept, or pilot.


Choosing the Database
---------------------
When you install vaneDisk, first take a hard look at the scale of your
implementation. vaneDisk can be installed with MySQL, PostgreSQL or SQLite.
Which you choose is dependent on your environment, the number of users, and
the scale of your implementation. SQLite is a lightweight,
zero-configuration, self contained database engine. The best parts of SQLite
are the ease with which one can implement and use SQLite, and the speed and
low overhead required for it to work. However, this is really designed for
small implementations of vaneDisk. In general, it is best to keep the use of
SQLite to personal installations, or to PoC or pilot installations with no
more than 50 users. For these sorts of implementations, SQLite works great.
If you have security concerns, or just don't know which to choose, then we
recommend stepping up to MySQL, as the tradeoff in server overhead is
typically worth the added benefits of a heavier database engine.

If you are installing vaneDisk Business or Enterprise Edition, the database
choice is a matter of preference between MySQL and PostgreSQL. While we
recommend MySQL for the large install base, large ecosystem, and the
additional features, such as MySQL clusters, you can use either database. On
first run, vaneDisk will configure the instance using your defined database
instance name, location, user name and password. For this to work, you must
first install and start a database, and configure a database user for
vaneDisk. For the purposes of this install guide, we will use MySQL.


Installation
------------
Enough of the background stuff, lets get started installing!

Getting Started
---------------
In this section, we will guide you to the links for the software you need to
install to get vaneDisk operating. If you have an alternative or preferred
approach to finding and installing Apache, PHP and MySQL, you may use it. On
Linux, though, we highly recommend sticking to the package manager
installations, which will greatly simplify updates, upgrades and un-installs
in the future.

To get started with your vaneDisk installation, install the latest Apache
release (as of writing, the latest Apache release is 2.4.1): 
Linux: through your package manager
Windows: download from http://httpd.apache.org/download.cgi 

Start the web server, and open a browser to localhost to be sure the web
server is installed and operating.

When that is installed, download and install the latest version of PHP (as
of writing, the latest PHP release is 5.4.0): 
- Linux: through your package manager. The PHP or vaneDisk package
  installation will handle these dependencies at the next step, but it is
  wise to make sure that these packagesare installed before you load
  vaneDisk for the first time:
  - mod_php
  - php-mysql 
  - php-json
  - php-gd
  - php-mb_multibyte
  - php-ctype
  - php-zip
- Windows: download from http://php.net/downloads.php 
  Note: you will be selecting the FastCGI installation as well, for PHP
  support.

Note for Fedora 16 users: please check http://blogs.fsfe.org/samtuke/?p=333
for information on getting php-zip installed!

When that is installed, download and install the latest version of the MySQL
community server (as of writing, the latest MySQL release is 5.6): 
- Linux: through your package manager.
- Windows: download from http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/

Mac Users:
If you are running a Mac, the easiest installation for this entire stack
(including the database) is to download the MAMP "one click solution for
setting up your personal web server". This can be found at
http://www.mamp.info/en/index.html .

At this point, you have the necessary prerequisites installed. Now it is
time to configure the database.


Setting up the Database
-----------------------
As already mentioned, vaneDisk will automatically create tables inside a
database at first run, but it needs to connect to a running instance of the
database. If you are using SQLite, this is not an issue, as SQLite is
essentially embedded in vaneDisk. But, if you are using MySQL or PostgreSQL,
you must install and configure the instance, as well as an vaneDisk user.

Please refer to the latest documentation for your database. 
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/#manual (5.6)
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/manuals/ (9.1)

Ensure that the database is installed, started, and that you have configured
an vaneDisk user with complete rights to create, read, update and delete
tables and records, as this user will be used to create tables at vaneDisk
first run, and then to manage users, groups, quota and more during ongoing
operations. For security considerations, we strongly suggest that you do not
use the database root account to access the database from vaneDisk.

You may install the vaneDisk database on a separate server from the vaneDisk
installation. In fact, for the largest vaneDisk installations, we recommend
installing a MySQL cluster environment, with multiple load balanced vaneDisk
application servers out front, all accessing the shared cluster. Depending
on your hardware, security considerations, and expected load, you may want
to separate the database from the app server. Simply note the username,
password, and address of the database, and enter this information into the
form within vaneDisk at first run, and vaneDisk will create the instance and
tables.


Configuring PHP
---------------
There are a few default configuration settings that you will want to change
to enable vaneDisk to operate more effectively as a self hosted file sync
and share server. When uploading through the web client, vaneDisk is
governed by PHP and Apache. As a default, PHP is configured for only 2 MB
uploads. This is not entirely useful, so it is important to increase these
variables to the sizes you want to support on your server.

Point your favorite text editor over to your php.ini file. On different
server operating systems this is located in different places. On openSUSE
and Ubuntu, for example, this is located in /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini
Note: the commend 'find / -name php.ini' can help you locate your php.ini on
Linux. 

On Windows, you can find this file within C:/Program Files (x86)/PHP/PHP.ini

Edit the php.ini file, looking for:
- upload_max_filesize = 500 MB
- post_max_size = 600 MB

The defaults for these values are quite small, so change them to to 500 MB
and 600MB, or 1G and 1.2G, for example, and you have adjusted the maximum
file size that can be uploaded at one time.

Make sure you restart your Apache server after these changes, or it will not
take affect!

Note: You will want these two values to be about the same size, with
post_max_size slightly larger to account for headers in the uploaded files.

If you find later that files keep timing out on upload, you may want to also
change these settings in the php.ini file: 
max_input_time 
memory_limit 
max_execution_time 
post_max_size 

See below for more on php.ini settings from radlinks.com. 

PHP.ini settings
- upload_max_filesize and post_max_size
  Files are usually POSTed to the webserver in a format known as
  'multipart/form-data'. The post_max_size sets the upper limit on the
  amount of data that a script can accept in this manner. Ideally this value
  should be larger than the value that you set for upload_max_filesize. 

  It's important to realize that upload_max_filesize is the sum of the sizes
  of all the files that you are uploading. post_max_size is the
  upload_max_filesize plus the sum of the lengths of all the other fields in
  the form plus any mime headers that the encoder might include. Since these
  fields are typically small you can often approximate the upload max size
  to the post max size.

  According to the PHP documentation you can set a MAX_UPLOAD_LIMIT in your
  HTML form to suggest a limit to the browser. Our understanding is that
  browsers totally ignore this directive and the only solution that can
  impose such a client side restriction is our own Rad Upload Applet

- memory_limit
  When the PHP engine is handling an incoming POST it needs to keep some of
  the incoming data in memory. This directive has any effect only if you
  have used the --enable-memory-limit option at configuration time. Setting
  too high a value can be very dangerous because if several uploads are
  being handled concurrently all available memory will be used up and other
  unrelated scripts that consume a lot of memory might effect the whole
  server as well. 

- max_execution_time and max_input_time
  These settings define the maximum life time of the script and the time
  that the script should spend in accepting input. If several mega bytes of
  data are being transfered max_input_time should be reasonably high. You
  can override the setting in the ini file for max_input_time by calling the
  set_time_limit() function in your scripts. 


Additional IIS Server Upload Step
---------------------------------
Now you have to go back to IIS manager and make one last change to enable
file uploads on the webserver larger than 30MB.
- Go to the start menu, and type in 'iis manager'
- Open IIS Manager
- Select the website you want enable to accept large file uploads
- In the main window in the middle double click on the icon "Request filtering"
- Once the window is opened you will see a bunch of tabs across the top
- On the far right, select "Edit Feature Settings" and modify the 
  "Maximum allowed content length (bytes)"
  In here, you can change this to up to 4.1 GB. 
  Note: this entry is in BYTES, not KB!
- Click OK and then restart IIS.


Installing vaneDisk Server
--------------------------
For Linux we HIGHLY RECOMMEND using your package manager!
- Go to http://vaneDisk.com/download/
- Select "vaneDisk Server", "rpm" and click "Download"
  You will be taken to the openSUSE Build Service, where you can select the
  OS for the installation, which will take you to the appropriate
  repositories for your OS version. When stepping through the installation
  process, be sure you remain subscribed to these repositories so that you
  can get the latest updates through the package manager!!!

These steps will download and install two packages and their dependencies on
your server: 
- vaneDisk
- vaneDisk-3rdparty
Both are required for vaneDisk to function, but for licensing reasons, they
must be packaged separately.

You may also download vaneDisk-unsupported packages from the same
repository, following the instructions above, if you would like the
unsupported packages installed as well. These are the packages that are
provided by the community, but for which vaneDisk, Inc. does not provide
support. They are not required for vaneDisk to function.


Install from source tarball:
Through a manual process of download and extracting the files. There are a
few Linux distributions, as well as Mac and Windows that have no alternative
and will need to use this method. If you are running Linux and can use the
package manager, we recommend you do so because using a Tarball, all updates
and maintenance will have to be handled manually.
- Go to http://dvaneDisk.com/download/
- Select "vaneDisk Server", ".tar.bz2" and click "Download"
  Once downloaded, extract the archive to a folder of your choice Copy the
  archive contents into the root of your web server 
  - Linux: varies, but examples are /srv/www/htdocs/ or /var/www/html
  - Windows: c:/inetpub/wwwroot/

You have just installed the vaneDisk application on your server!

Note: there are Linux specific download and installation instructions
available for the Community Edition at
http://vaneDisk.org/support/setup-and-installation/linux-server/ if you need
additional details on how to install vaneDisk. If you follow those
instructions, just be sure you download the vaneDisk application from
http://vaneDisk.com/download, as the latest stable and supported version of
vaneDisk will always be available at this URL.


Configuration
-------------
After successfully installing vaneDisk, you will find a folder in your web
server root called /vaneDisk. The entire vaneDisk application is installed
in that directory.


- Changing Permissions
  Once vaneDisk is installed, you need to change permissions so that the web
  server user can access and update the vaneDisk application and
  configuration files. 

  To do this, go to your root web server directory and change the owner of
  the files to the web server. 
  openSUSE / SLES
  - Go to /srv/www/htdocs/
  - type: chown -R wwwrun:www vaneDisk
  Fedora / RHEL
  - Go to /var/www/html/
  - type: chown -R apache:apache vaneDisk
  - If you are running SELinux, please read
    /usr/share/doc/vaneDisk/README.SELinux
  Ubuntu
  - Go to /var/www
  - type: chown -R www-data:www-data vaneDisk
  Windows
  - Navigate your windows explorer over to C:/inetpub/wwwroot/vaneDisk (or
    your installation directory if you selected something different).
  - Right click and select properties.
  - Click on the security tab, and click the button "to change permissions,
    click edit".
  - Select the "users" user from the list, and check the box "write". 
  - Apply these settings and close


Performing First Run
--------------------
Once all of this is completed, it is time to run the "first run" wizard.
Point your browser over to the instance of vaneDisk you are setting up, e.g.
http://localhost/vaneDisk

This will open the vaneDisk "first run" wizard. On this page, you enter your
desired vaneDisk username and password for the administrator, and expand the
little arrow. 

You can select the appropriate database here, and enter the database user
name and password, instance name and address. We recommend MySQL as the
database, on this page enter the user name and password you setup for MySQL
earlier, and pick any name for the database instance. We use something
meaningful like vaneDisk_2012, you can use anything.

Note: the vaneDisk admin password and the MySQL password CANNOT be the same
in any way!

Click next, and the vaneDisk server will write to the /vaneDisk/config
folder the config.php file, connect to the database and create the tables
vaneDisk needs, and then vaneDisk should have you logged in as the admin
user in the vaneDisk interface. Now you an get started exploring vaneDisk,
creating other users and more from the web interface.


Configuring SSL
---------------
Configuring SSL within vaneDisk is not difficult, as vaneDisk is a web based
application. Simply get a certificate and follow your procedures for
enabling SSL on your web server. If you have are looking for procedures to
follow, you may follow a number of standard online tutorials at Apache.org
or a variety of other sites. They will demonstarte how to create a self
signed certificate, or how to generate a certificate request and get a
certificate authority signed certificate, where to place the certificate on
the server, and how to enable SSL in the Apache configuration files. As
vaneDisk is a web application, following these procedures will enable you to
effectively use SSL, and if you choose, leverage SSL on all of your client,
mobile app and web based access to the server. Just remember to close HTTP
and open HTTPS on your server firewall if you would like to force all
clients to use HTTPS. 


Desktop Clients
---------------
While all vaneDisk Editions can be accessed by our desktop clients,
only the Business and Enterprise Editions come with support subscriptions
for the client. You can gain access to any of the clients on the
http://dvaneDisk.com/download website.


Windows Client Installation 
---------------------------
- Go to http://vaneDisk.com/download 
- Find the vaneDisk Windows Client and click Download 
- Once downloaded, run the installation wizard

Note: On some Norton Antivirus systems, Norton raises a flag on this client
software. It doesn't say the software is a virus, just that it is unknown to
Norton. Essentially, this is new software from vaneDisk, and Norton doesn't
have a record in their database for the file, so it quarantines it. It is a
simple matter to remove it from the quarantine and install the client.

- Once the client is installed, find the application in your Start menu, and
  open it. You will be notified that "There is no vaneDisk connection
  available. Please configure one by clicking on the tray icon." In your
  system tray, right click on the vaneDisk icon and click configure. This
  will take you to the "Create an vaneDisk Connection" wizard. 

- Here you enter your vaneDisk instance address and click next, and then
  enter your user name and password and click next.

- The desktop client will attempt to conenct to your server, and if
  successful, will try to create the c:/users/'your user name'/vaneDisk
  directory, and will link this directory to a new folder on the server in
  your account it will create called "syncclient". This is the automated
  setup wizard. Note: if either of these folders exist already, it will not
  link them for security reasons.

- If you want to add folders to Sync on the server, simply right click and
  select "Add Folder". This will take you to the "Express Upload Source"
  directory, where you can select other folders to sync on your PC, and
  connect them to other folders you create on your server.

Note: you cannot sync a parent directory, and then sync a child directory,
as you would be syncing two directories that are essentially the same, which
the server does not allow.

From here, any files or folders put into any synced directory will be
automatically uploaded the server, and server files will automatically be
downloaded to the client. If a conflict is detected, the sync client will
create a file with "conflict" in the name, and you can view and
determine which file to keep and which to delete.

Also note, if you wish to share files, all sharing is enables through the
web client. Log in to an account through a web browser, and select the files
and folders to share, and they will be shared automatically with other users
of vaneDisk, or publicly with a read only, shared public link.


Linux Client Installation 
-------------------------
- Go to http://vaneDisk.com/download 
- Find the vaneDisk Linux Clients and click Download 
- Select the operating system you are working with, the version, and click
  the button 
- Your package manager will automatically download the client and any
  dependencies not already installed. Remember to select to stay subscribed
  to the repository so that updates can be easily installed on the Linux
  client!!!

- Once the client is installed, find the application in your Start menu, and
  open it. You will be notified that "There is no vaneDisk connection
  available. Please configure one by clicking on the tray icon." In your
  system tray, right click on the vaneDisk icon and click configure. This
  will take you to the "Create an vaneDisk Connection" wizard. 

- Here you enter your vaneDisk instance address and click next, and then
  enter your user name and password and click next.

- The desktop client will attempt to connect to your server, and if
  successful, will try to create the /home/'your user name'/vaneDisk
  directory, and will link this directory to a new folder on the server in
  your account it will create called "syncclient". This is the
  automated setup wizard. Note: if either of these folders exist already, it
  will not link them for security reasons.

- If you want to remove an existing folder, or add folders to Sync to the
  server, simply right click on the vaneDisk system try icon and select
  "Add Folder". This will take you to the "Express Upload Source"
  directory, where you can select other folders to sync on your
  PC, and connect them to other folders you create on your server.

Note: you cannot sync a parent directory, and then sync a child directory,
as you would be syncing two directories with the same content, which the
server does not allow.

From here, any files or folders put into any synced directory will be
automatically uploaded the server, and server files will automatically be
downloaded to the client. If a conflict is detected, the sync client will
create a file with "conflict" in the name, and you can view and
determine which file to keep and which to delete.

If you wish to share files, all sharing is enables through the web client.
Log in to an account through a web browser, and select the files and folders
to share, and they will be shared automatically with other users of
vaneDisk, or publicly with a read only, shared public link.


Enjoy your own Cloud!