Today I had to install a new iFolder server in a VMWare ESX environment. It was a  little more difficult than I expected it to be.  Everything from the mono .Net layer, to openLDAP, to iFolder over SSL had it’s own little challenges.  Hopefully this step by step will help a few of you out getting this very slick personal backup and file sharing solution installed and running.

• Step 1 – Virtual Machine Setup
  
• Step 2 – Finalize the LDAP server
• Step 3 – Finalize the iFolder Web server (you are here)

Step 3 – Finalize the iFolder Web Server

As you’ll recall in (if you don’t recall, don’t miss out on) step 1, we created a very basic OpenSUSE 10.3 installation and converted it to a template before the installation process completed.  Then in step 2 we created the LDAP server. Here we’ll get the web server up and running with iFolder installed.

In the VMWare Infrastructure Client, right-clicking on my OPENSUSE10.3 template, I select “Deploy Virtual Machine from this template…”   The settings you enter in the Deploy Template Wizard will be very specific to your environment so I won’t cover them in detail here.

I made two changes after the deployment process completed.  First, I disconnected the CD / DVD ISO because I won’t be needing it anymore.  Second, I added a second virtual disk to be used as my iFolder data store.  I went with a 250GB virtual disk which should hold all my files, at least for a while anyway.

Power on the virtual machine (mine is named IFOLDERWEB01) and open up the console.

Finish Setup

OpenSUSE will detect that you have not completed the installation process and load up the YaST First run utility.

1. Set your root password, as always, set a good one.
2. Hostname and Domain name: This can anything you want, just remember what the settings are.  I always uncheck “Change hostname via DHCP”
3. Network configuration: You’ll need to set a static IP address, valid DNS servers, and a valid default gateway.
4. Test Internet Connection: I always skip this
5. Authentication Method: LDAP
   1. LDAP Client Configuration wizard
   2. Address of LDAP server: Enter the address assigned to your LDAP server from step 2
   3. You can use “Fetch DN” to get the correct base DN
   4. Uncheck LDAP TLS/SSL
   5. Open Advanced Configuration
      1. View Administration Settings
      2. Enter the full Administrator DN as recorded in step 2
      3. Accept
   6. Select Next
   7. Install any missing packages requested by YaST
6. Release Notes: select Next
7. Finish

At this point you should have a very basic OpenSUSE server up and running and connected to the Internet.  From here, we’ll install the Web server and iFolder services.  You should be back at the login prompt, so login as root, type “yast” (no quotes) and press enter.

Install required packages

In the YaST2 Control Center select Software -> Sofware Management.  Your system may update it’s cache at this point.  After a few moments you should see a list of installed software.  You’ll want to install the following packages and let YaST handle the dependencies:

• apache2-worker
• openssl
• wget
• log4net

After those packages are installed, I recomment creating a temp directory somewhere to download the required iFolder RPM files.  I ran the following…

cd ~
mkdir rpmtmp
cd rpmtmp
mkdir ifolder
mkdir mono
cd mono
wget http://ftp.novell.com/pub/mono/download/x86/mono/1.2.6-4/mono-core-1.2.6-4.novell.i586.rpm
wget http://ftp.novell.com/pub/mono/download/x86/mono/1.2.6-4/mono-data-1.2.6-4.novell.i586.rpm
wget http://ftp.novell.com/pub/mono/download/x86/mono/1.2.6-4/mono-data-sqlite-1.2.6-4.novell.i586.rpm
wget http://ftp.novell.com/pub/mono/download/x86/mono/1.2.6-4/mono-web-1.2.6-4.novell.i586.rpm
wget http://ftp.novell.com/pub/mono/download/x86/mono/1.2.6-4/mono-nunit-1.2.6-4.novell.i586.rpm
wget http://ftp.novell.com/pub/mono/download/x86/mono/1.2.6-4/mono-winforms-1.2.6-4.novell.i586.rpm
wget http://ftp.novell.com/pub/mono/download/noarch/xsp/1.2.6-2/xsp-1.2.6-2.novell.noarch.rpm
wget http://ftp.novell.com/pub/mono/download/suse-103-i586/mod_mono/1.2.6-1/apache2-mod_mono-1.2.6-1.suse103.novell.i586.rpm
rpm -Uvh *.rpm
cd ../ifolder/
wget http://superb-west.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/ifolder3/ifolder3-enterprise-3.7.2.9089.1-0.2.i586.rpm
wget http://superb-east.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/ifolder3/ifolder-enterprise-plugins-3.7.2.9089.1-2.i586.rpm
rpm -Uvh *.rpm

There, iFolder is installed. It’s not too bad once you get the right list of mono packages.  Next we need to configure the iFolder server and link it to our LDAP server. As the ifolder RPM indicates, “Run /usr/bin/simias-server-setup to configure the server”.  But wait, before we do that, that new virtual disk I created in VMWare needs to be formatted so it’s ready to go.

YaST -> System -> Partitioner

1. Create a new Disk
2. Select the disk you created, in my case, /dev/sdb
3. Primary Partition
4. Leave the format defaults as they are.  Note, iFolder requires an Ext3 or Reiser filesystem
5. Leave the size with it’s defaults
6. Set the Mount Point to, /data
7. Select, OK
8. Back in the main partitioner window, select Apply
9. Confirm the changes by selecting Apply again.  Note: I’ve found selecting Finish often ends up requiring a reboot for some reason, so I shy away from it now.
10. Also note, don’t screw this part up or you’ll be starting over by deploying your VM from template again.
11. When the formatting is complete, select Quit to exit the Partitioner wizard

Now, back to the iFolder setup process, here is what I did:

/usr/bin/simias-server-setup
Server Data Path: /data/simias
Server Name: ifolderweb01
SSL: NONSSL
Public URL: http://myip/simias10
Private URL: http://myip/simias10
System Name: ifolder
System Description: iFolder Enterprise System
Use Key Recovery Agent? Y
Recovery Agent Certificate Path? /var/simias/data
Use LDAP? Y
LDAP Server? your ldap server IP
LDAP Secure? N
LDAP Admin DN? This is the full Administrator DN as recorded in step 2
LDAP Admin Password? Your password
System Admin? cn=admin,dc=yourdomain,dc=com (this is a little tricky, just use the same full Administrator DN you used, except swap, admin, in place of, administrator
System Admin Password? whatever you want
LDAP Proxy DN? cn=SimiasProxy,dc=yourdomain,dc=com
LDAP Proxy Password? whatever you want
LDAP Search Context? cn=iFolderUsers,ou=group,dc=mynightowl,dc=com
Naming Attribute? mail
Configure Apache? Y
Ldap Groups Plugin? Y

Whew, you have no idea how many times I ran the setup process to get that to work. The problem is all the default values are for non LDAP installations, and while I’ve very familiar with Windows and Active Directory, I don’t spend a lot of time looking at what all the specific Distinguished Names are in an LDAP directory.

Web Server Configuration

• /usr/bin/ifolder-web-setup
  • Web Alias? /ifolder
  • Require SSL? N
  • Require Server SSL? N
  • iFolder URL? http://youripaddress:80/
  • Redirect URL? leave blank
• /usr/bin/ifolder-admin-setup
  • Web Alias? /admin
  • Require SSL? N
  • Require Server SSL? N
  • iFolder URL?  http://youripaddress:80/
  • Redirect URL? leave blank
• /sbin/chkconfig apache2 on
• /etc/init.d/apache2 start

That is it.  You’re up and running.  Visit the addresses below in your web browser and start clicking around.  Keep in kind, I disabled ALL encryption for this installation.  In my particular case, all traffic will be contained to a trusted local area network.  If you’re doing anything over the Internet you’ll of course want to enable encryption.

I plan to follow up here with a special Step on enabling public encryption.  But up next in this series are the Windows and Mac OS desktop clients for iFolder.  This is where things get really useful.  Check back soon, follow me on Twitter @goodbadtech, or subscribe to Feedburner email notifications to stay informed of new posts.

User Access:  http://youripaddress/ifolder
Admin Access: http://youripaddress/admin

Authentication

The admin user you created has a username of, cn=admin,dc=yourdomain,dc=com, I know that’s a little unusual, but it’s just the default admin.  All other users you add to your LDAP directory will login using their email address.  I suggest logging in as cn=admin,dc=yourdomain,dc=com, then setting that first LDAP user you created as an iFolder admin, then you can use that for administering the system instead of the admin user with the complete distinguished name.

• Step 1 – Virtual Machine Setup
  
• Step 2 – Finalize the LDAP server
• Step 3 – Finalize the iFolder Web server (you are here)