Note! This Manual is for the "Forms authentication" version. This version requires you to create each account and store credentials in the HTTP Commander XML database. If you have Windows server or Active Directory accounts already and want to use them in the HTTP Commander, you need to download the "Windows authentication" version! This Manual is for the Forms authentication version only!

Authentication mode setting. This specifies the type of authentication users have to pass to log into HTTP Commander and the type of back-end account database.

There are 5 kinds of authentication:

1. "Windows" authentication should be used if you want to use windows accounts for authentication in HTTP Commander (either local or Active Directory accounts). Account database: SAM database of the web server machine or Active Directory (server must be joined to domain).
2. "Forms" authentication is used if you want to manage accounts by yourself. Account database: custom XML file (Data\Accounts.xml).

3. "Forms for Windows users" authentication relies on the same account database as "Windows" authentication, but, unlike the former, users enter their credentials in a web form.

   Note! "Forms for Windows users" authentication is less stable than Windows authentication. (We are aware of the following problem: WebDav feature (MS Office edit and folders mapping) does not work in IIS 6 and in IIS 7+ under Classic mode).

4. "Novell EDirectory" authentication works with Novell EDirectory accounts. Account database: Novell EDirectory. When you select this authentication type, then you should specify the following parameters: EDirectoryBindUserDN, EDirectoryBindUserPassword, LDAPContainer in the HttpCommanderSettings.config file.
5. "Shibboleth" should be used if you deployed Shibboleth system to manage access to HTTP Commander application. The file manager relies on Shibboleth system to perform authentication, HTTP Commander determines the current logged in user to decide the type of access to provide to application: what folders to map, whether Admin Panel will be available, and so on.

Note! Don't set Forms authentication for Windows accounts and vice-versa.

See Manual configuration of authentication mode for instructions about changing authentication mode.

Note! This manual is for the Forms version only! If you need the Windows authentication version, then at least download its User Manual. "Windows authentication" version download.

• You can disable "read" permissions in IIS for this folder.
  For Windows 2003:
  • Open IIS console: Control panel->Administrative tools->
    Internet Information Services->Expand "Default web site" and "HTCOMNET" folder.
  • Right-click the "Data" folder and select "Properties" in the context menu.
    In the Data properties dialog box, open "Directory" tab and uncheck Read permissions. Screenshot

     

  For Windows 2008, 2012:
  • In the IIS console select Data node inside "HTCOMNET" node and click "Handler mappings" in the right tab. Select StaticFile in the list and click "Edit Feature Permissions" link in the right tab. In the next dialog window, uncheck "Read" permissions.
    Screenshot

     

• or move this folder outside of the web site root. Copy the "Data" folder to a new path, like c:\, and set "c:\Data" value. Check NTFS permissions for new Data folder location.

Notify about uploaded/modified/downloaded files
Example:
Events: Upload,Modify,Download
When: OnSessionEnd
Emails: mike@mysite.com,jdoe@mysite.com
Users: admin,john
Groups: students,staff
Path: Demo folder 1\
Path: path to folder2\commonproject.doc
Path: ^Domain users demo folder\\folder1\\ (type "Regex")

Events is a comma-separated list of events, for which notification emails will be sent.

When is a one of the OnSessionEnd or Immediate values, setting when notification emails about actions with files will go.

Emails is a comma-separated list of e-mail addresses that will get notification about events with files.

Users is a comma-separated list of users to monitor.

Groups is a comma-separated list of groups to monitor.

The application is monitoring events (upload/modify/download) activity of a user if its name is listed in the user list or if a group it is a member of is listed in the groups list. If both users and groups lists are empty, then all users are monitored.

Path specify what folders and files to monitor.

There two types of paths: plain and regex. For plain paths you may specify either file or folder. To distinguish folder path from file path, a folder path should end with a backslash. When you specify file, for example, "share\dir1\file.txt", then monitor only that particular file. When you specify folder, for example, "share\", then monitor all files in that folder and all its subfolders. For regex paths, that path parameter should contain regular expression to match against file path. For example, "^share\\.*\.txt$" matches all file with ".txt extension in "share" folder and all its subfolders.

You may specify Path parameter a number of times. The application monitors a file if it matches at least one of the path filters specified. If you do not specify a path filter, then all files are monitored.

Description of the example described above: if the users admin and john or any another user of students and staff groups are uploading (or-and modifying, downloading) files into (from) the Demo folder 1 or a path to folder2\commonproject.doc file or into (from) the folder matching the regular expression "^Domain users demo folder\\folder1\\", the notifications will be sent to the following e-mail addresses: mike@mysite.com and jdoe@mysite.com.

You need also to configure Mail Settings parameters and type your mail server, port and user if authentication is needed.

<mailSettings> 
      <smtp deliveryMethod="Network" from="example@gmail.com">
        <network defaultCredentials="false" host="smtp.gmail.com" password="example"
          port="587" userName="example" enableSsl="true"/>
      </smtp>
</mailSettings>

Note 3. Some of these settings can be changed in Admin Panel.

Defines the set of details (metadata) that users can assign to files and folders. For example, users can add comment, description, authorship, locking metadata to files and folders. A metadata item may allow single or multiple values (multivalued metadata).

Parameter format: comma-separated list of items. Each item specifies the metadata name followed by a boolean flag indicating singlevalued/multivalued metadata (singlevalued - false, multivalued - true).

"Custom" metadata allows using any metadata names. Otherwise users can only assign metadata listed in this parameter.

"" (Empty string) - details feature is prohibited.

Example: "Description:False,Comment:True,custom:True" (Details with titles "Description", "Comment" and user's custom metadata are available. Comment and Custom are multivalued)

Implementation details
File/folder metadata are stored in "Metadata" NTFS stream in JSON format.

Defines the list of columns available and visible by default in the file list. A user may show/hide any available column in the file list. By default file size, type and date modified columns are visible, date accessed and date are available but hidden.

Parameter format: comma-separated list of items. Item format: <column_name>[:<True|False>][:<column_width>]
Each item specifies column name followed by boolean flag indicating if the column is shown by default.
Additionally, through the colon can be specified column width in pixels. If the width is not specified, the width will be used by default for the corresponding column.
The display order of columns is the same as in the list.

You may use the following predefined columns: "size", "type", "datemodified", "datecreated", "dateaccessed", "downloads". In addition you may use metadata columns to display metadata defined in AvailableDetailsTitles parameter.
Thus, if the visibility flag is not specified, the column will be displayed (which corresponds to visibility True).
If the column width is not specified, then the following values (in pixels)​​:

• size, downloads — 70
• type, datemodified, datecreated, dateaccessed — 140
• The width of each of the remaining columns (except column name) will be automatically calculated depending on the remaining space on the screen

Also note that the column with the file name (name) is displayed regardless of whether it is specified in the list with the visibiliy flag or not. Also, the size of this column is autoexpandable, so specifying the size for it to have any effect. But you can specify the column name in the list that change its display order, for example by specifying "type,size,name", the column name will be visible to third.

Example: "size:True:100,type,datemodified:True,comment:True:300".

Note 1! Don't use too many columns because each column makes the list loading slower.

Note 2! Column "downloads" is available when EnableDownloadsCounting is "true". Also note that after downloading the file, the value in this column is not updated automatically, you need to update the contents (button "Refresh").

• link to normal downloading of file;
• link to file viewing in browser if file type allows (see FileTypes.xml in root of HTTP Commander folder);
• link to file viewing in Google Docs Viewer if file type allows and EnableGoogleDocumentsViewer=true;
• link to file viewing in Microsoft Office Web Apps if file type allows and EnableOWADocumentsViewer=true.

• Go to a Ext Theme Builder site and from a navigation bar on the right click Ext Theme Builder.
• Select a Template (recommended gray), colors (base, header, background, border), fonts, Window transparency.
• As Toolset select Default, and as the ExtJs version: 3.1.
• Click Apply, enter YourStyleThemeName and click Download Theme. It will be xtheme-YourStyleThemeName.zip file. Unpack the downloaded archive in Images/resources_1.5 and as the value for StyleThemeName specify YourStyleThemeName.

• Set this parameter to true
• in the Default.aspx file find a line
  <!-- Opening embedded tag DIV -->
  also delete comments (<!-- and -->) since the next line with the DIV element.
  Also find lines
  <!-- Closing embedded tag DIV -->
  <!--</div>-->
  also delete comments from closing tag </div>.
• You also can change attributes of style at the DIV element: width, height, etc.
  Note. It is recommended not to change attribute of position style.

• When the parameter is blank, the system temporary folder (usually C:\Windows\Temp) is used.
• When the parameter is "Current", the current folder (that is the folder where the file is being uploaded) is used.

<ZohoEditorAPIKey value="PutZohoAPIKeyHere" />
If you use collaborative work with files, you can set the following parameter:
<ZohoEditingMode value="collabedit " />
The parameter's values can be:
view -- A document opens in read-only mode.

normaledit -- A document opens only in edit mode for the user and no other collaborators are allowed. Default value.

collabview -- A document opens in a collaborative view mode. Multiple users can view the content of the document at the same time and can leave notes/comments using the integrated chat service. However, they cannot edit the document content.

collabedit -- A document opens in real-time collaborative edit mode. Multiple user can edit the document at the same time.


You can get more info at the Zoho API web page

A virtual folder in HTTP Commander's root folder for WebDAV requests. If the web folder manager is published under http://www.yourcompany.com/htcomnet/, then the following URL identifies WebDAV's root folder: http://www.yourcompany.com/htcomnet/hcwebdav/.

HTTP Commander intercepts all HTTP(S) requests for that folder and processes them according to WebDAV protocol. If you have a physical folder with the same name in the application's root folder, its content will not be accessible via HTTP protocol. Presence of the identically named physical folder in no way affects correct functioning of WebDAV feature in HTTP Commander.

Normally you should not change this parameter. Make sure, however, that HTTP Commander URL does not contain segments matching the value of this parameter (string comparison is case-insensitive). For example, if you've published the application under http://www.yourcompany.com/hcwebdav/HttpCommander/, you need to change the value of IdentifierWebDav parameter, otherwise WebDAV feature will not function. You may also decide to change the value of this parameter for aesthetic reasons.

Restrictions on the value of this parameter The parameter should not contain slash and backslash characters. It is recommended to limit the range of used characters to latin letters, digits and characters '_', '-'.

Note !  If you renamed value of this parameter (or updated from older version), then add (or check) to Web.config file before the opening tag <system.webServer> next lines:
<location path="your_webdav_identifier">
  <system.web>
    <authorization>
      <allow users="*" />
    </authorization>
  </system.web>
</location>

It is surely recommended to read article Web folders

• 0 - the drop down list of allowed root paths isn't displayed;
• 1(10) - the drop down list with folders and one level subfolders from the allowed list is displayed (10 - in this case in the selection list relative paths will be displayed);
• 2(20) - the drop down list with folders, subfolders and all level subfolders from the allowed list is displayed. Value 20 is similar 10.

A virtual path of the HTTP Commander root directory. It may be either absolute or relative URL.

Absolute URL For example, "http://myserver.com/app1/HttpCommander" or "https://myserver.com/app1/HttpCommander".

Relative URL The URL of the web application root directory containing HTTP Commander root directory plays the role of base URL. For example, "http://myserver.com/app1" is URL of the web application (IIS terminology) and HTTP Commander root folder is located in ElementIt/HttpCommander subfolder of the web application root folder, then the virtual path should be "~/ElementIt/HttpCommander". The absolute URL of the HTTP Commander root directory is "http://myserver.com/app1/ElementIt/HttpCommander".

You need to specify this option when HTTP Commander works in web control mode. In other modes HTTP Commander root folder matches web application folder, it is detected automatically.

Set true to edit Microsoft and Open Office files without authentication prompt.

When you open an office document in HTTP Commander, Microsoft Office and Open Office shows an authentication dialog. You have to enter valid credentials to view and edit the document. AnonymousEditingOffice option allows you to suppress the authentication dialog, the document will be opened without request for credentials.

Note that HTTP Commander uses identity of the application pool to access the file. Such approach works correctly in the following authentication modes: Forms, Novell EDirectory. AnonymousEditingOffice option will not work correctly in other authentication modes. Windows and Forms with Windows Users modes impersonate the current user, that is not the case in anonymous editing.
If this parameter is enabled, links for mapping web folders have a suffix "0", and for anonymous editing in office - "1". See Web Folders acticle.

Arguments for running the Antivirus scanner.

If the value isn't set, the Antivirus scanner will be invoked with a single argument — the path to the file to be checked. To refer to the file to be checked, use the %1 template in the parameter value. The template will be replaced with the path to the file or folder being checked enclosed in double quotes. For example, the parameter may be:

/log=bdcscan.log /fixed /del %1

Provided the target file is d:\test.exe, the Antivirus scanner will be invoked with the following arguments:

/log=bdcsan.log /fixed /del "d:\test.exe"

If the value is not blank and does not contain the %1 template, the path of the target file in double quotes will be appended to the value.

• OAuth1. For DropboxConsumerKey parameter set value fdfewmdf330tzow, for DropboxConsumerSecret parameter - xofmom5gscaxws5.
• OAuth2. Please see How to integrate with Dropbox.