KubuntuFilesharing

Summary

Make sharing files easy and intuitive in KDE 4.

Release Note

Kubuntu can now easily share files to the local network.

Rationale

Sharing files is a common user task.

Use Cases

Jon wants to open the letter that Krissy has written. He finds it in her shared folder and opens it.

User Interface

In the Folder Properties dialogue in Dolphin, a "Sharing" tab offers a "Share this folder" tickbox", "Share method" dropdown combo box offering "WWW" & "Samba (Windows)" and a "Other people can write to this folder" tickbox.

Dolphin's "Network" location should directly show the zeroconf folders (WWW, ssh etc) inside which are the shared files. It already has an icon for Samba shares.

Implementation

Rip out the current Samba sharing UI in KDE, it's broken.

Create a daemon which can set up a small web server. The current openSUSE tool, Kepas, does this but it would be much better if it offered WebDav and the daemon should not be restricted to the users session.

The daemon dbus interface to add new shares and remove existing ones, the Dolphin dialogue would communicate through this. It saves its current shares in a config file so they are activated on boot. WebDav shares should be advertised over Avahi.

For SMB support, Samba would need to be installed. The user interface should offer to install it the first time that is set up. The daemon can use "net user share add.." to create a share.

Long Term Plans

A "Send this file to user" feature as in Kepas would be useful. It should be integrated with the file manager.

Permissions on shares should be controllable for authentication by users and groups with ldap/active directory etc.

Comments

* Kubuntu had basic a web sharing facility that in Dapper (and perhaps since then). I think was provided by kpf. However, kpf was an applet rather than a daemon and presumably didn't support WebDAV -- JohnMccabeDansted

* Samba should also advertise via zeroconf (using _smb._tcp) as Mac OS X 10.5 does. See DNS-SD Service Types. -- RobinPerkins


CategorySpec

KubuntuFilesharing (last edited 2008-08-06 16:21:00 by localhost)