netfshare

A flask-based local network file sharing tool.

Not for production environements. Use with care.

Installation and use

1. Install the netfshare python package:

   py -m pip install netfshare

2. Navigate to the directory that you want to share the contents of.

3. (OPTIONAL) To secure your WSGI application, set a custom SECRET_KEY environment variable, or create a .env file in the shared directory defining the SECRET_KEY:

    SECRET_KEY=my_secret_key
   

4. Run netfshare to start the sharing service:

   py -m netfshare

The service can be accessed at http://<your-local-ip>:5000 by default.

If needed, you can override the port through configuration.

On first startup, netfshare creates .netfshare/config.json with the default settings if that file does not already exist. For example:

{
  "PORT": 5000,
  "MAX_FILES": 10
}

Make sure your machine is discoverable in the local network and that the required firewall rules are active.

Admin access

The netfshare app automatically recognizes a client that's accessing the app from the host (machine running the app) as admin, including access via 127.0.0.1 and the host machine's own local network IP address.

If you're having issues with admin access, try accessing the app directly at:

http://127.0.0.1:5000

Sharing settings

Visit the service website Admin interface from the machine running the service to manage the sharing settings.

netfshare supports downloading the contents (subdirectories) of your shared folder, as well as uploading clients' content to selected directories inside the shared folder.

Only downloads of whole subdirectories are supported, as .zip archives. To make files available for downalod, they must be placed inside a subdirectory of the sharedfolder, and the appropriate sharing mode must be set for this subdirectory in the Admin web interface.

Currently, the supported sharing modes are:

• read_only: whole subdirectories of the shared folder can be downloaded as a .zip archive.
• upload_only: clients can upload their data into a selected subdirectory of the shared folder. The uploaded content is placed inside a subfolder with the user's selected name. Currently, only a single upload by each user is allowed.

Localization

netfshare supports localization using flask-babel.

The client-facing routes of the app are translated into English and Slovenian.

To update the translations after adding / modifying app text, run the following to get new text to bt translated and update the Slovenian translation file,:

pybabel extract -F babel.cfg -o messages.pot .
pybabel update -i messages.pot -d netfshare/translations

Now edit / add new translations in translations/sl/LC_MESSAGES/messages.po and compile the new translations:

pybabel compile -d netfshare/translations