Editing Introduction to a Self Managed Life: a 13 hour & 28 minute presentation by FUTO software (section)

=== Step 2: Local file access ===

Once you’re in, you’ll set up everything. Enter a password, agree to the terms of the license, and you’re good to go. I suggest entering administration settings and setting up HTTPS - it will make a self-signed certificate for you!

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==== 2.1 Diving into “open sourcey” software ====

You can open a sample document. But what if I want this workspace server to be able to access ''files stored on the server??'' I want to open a document that’s on this computer; here’s where the fun begins. :)

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==== 2.2 The Rabbit Hole to hell for Local File Access ====

So, where do I go? There’s “Shared with me,” “Favorites,” “Reasons,” “Private room,” “Common in projects,” and “Invite users to Portal.” Maybe the settings? Let’s try that. Administrator profile settings, control panel… and oh, look, “Storage” - maybe I can add a local directory!!! … no, it’s all a mirage

<blockquote>'''Open Sourcism:''' You can’t just open a document from your server. It’s not a feature. You need to pass the direct URL to the document using a WebDAV server. Can you believe this? Welcome to the world of open source software!
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==== 2.3 Mounting volumes in Docker failed me ====

I went down the rabbit hole to figure this out when I tried weening myself off nextcloud a few years ago.

When you choose to install with Docker, there’s a script that gets downloaded. I explored the directory where this is installed—<code>onlyoffice</code>—and found the <code>document server</code>, <code>control panel</code>, <code>community server</code>, <code>MySQL setup</code>, and <code>mail server</code>.

In the <code>document server</code>, there’s a <code>data</code> directory. So, I thought, “Surely, I can mount it as a volume using Docker.” I searched for <code>:rw</code> to find where they’re specifying all the Docker volumes. It looks like a typical Docker Compose YAML file. I tried adding an argument for my directory, like <code>home/louis/Documents</code>, and mounted it in almost every possible location.

<blockquote>'''Important Note:''' The problem isn’t that the volume isn’t mounted. The issue is that this feature was never implemented in the software. They never thought a document server would need to access files on it. This is, again, the most open sourcey thing I’ve seen in a long time.
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==== 2.4 Fighting open source &amp; winning ====

There’s a way to get files into this, but it won’t be immediately obvious. Going back to settings, there’s a menu called '''“Connected clouds”'''; we will use this to connect a WebDAV server to serve ourselves files.

We have to set up a webdav server, on our server, to serve files to the same virtual machine.

The whole idea of cloud server software is that you should be able to edit your documents in the cloud. No matter what computer you’re on, your files should be right there. But… my cloud server software can’t even read the files from my cloud server computer. Even if I mount those directories within the Docker volume, it still won’t work. The software wasn’t designed to see items in its own document data directory. But wait, it gets better.

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==== 2.5 The “Solution” ====

There’s a workaround for this. You can connect a new cloud. That you create, within your cloud. schrodinger’s cloud.

# Go through the settings and head to the control panel.
# You’ll see something called storage. You might think, “Oh, that’s where I can change things, right?” Wrong. There’s nothing there for connecting to local storage.
# Go back and find the connect button. It’s on the home screen under documents.
# Click “Connect” and we’re going to connect another cloud to our cloud.

We’re going to create a WebDAV server on our computer to feed files over to OnlyOffice. It’ll look like your directories are available, like it’s reading them off your computer, but we’re actually using WebDAV.

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==== 2.6 Setting Up WebDAV ====

We’re setting up a separate server to feed files to our server, on our server. There’s this small Python program called <code>wsgidav</code>. It’s a lightweight WebDAV server, not like setting up Apache or Nginx.

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==== 2.7 The Directory Problem ====

Let’s say I want two directories: a <code>documents</code> directory and an <code>Android backup</code> directory. I can’t map both to WebDAV like you can in a Docker container. You can only log into one at a time.

Imagine having five different directories in one Docker volume but only being able to use ''one at a time.'' You’d have to log in differently each time.

You might think, ''“Louis, just create a new directory and symlink all the directories you want into it. What’s the problem?”'' Well, here’s where the open source rabbit hole goes deeper… the documentation for the software has an option called <code>follow symlinks</code>. You can set it to true, but it doesn’t work. Not unless you install a different version of the software because the version you get on PIP doesn’t work.

<blockquote>'''Warning:''' This will gaslight you to tears. You’ll pull your hair out wondering if you set up your symlinks right. It’s like a mirage—everything looks like it should work, but it doesn’t. I’m here to remind you that you are not insane.
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As Ralph Kramden would say, it doesn’t mean to be mean; it was just born that way.

I promise, this is all worth it to never have to use Nextcloud again. This is still better than Nextcloud, which tells you how bad Nextcloud is.

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