File/Folder Sharing using Form based Authentication
Prerequisite
Make sure NirvaShare is installed in any of your cloud platforms or on-premise environment. In case if you do not have one, please check HERE for more options. Also make sure below configurations are done.
File sharing using Form-Based Authentication
Once the installation and basic configuration are done, the next step is to browse the storage file/folder and share it with users. In this tutorial, we will create a Share for a folder with simple Form-based authentication.
- Click on the Storage tab on the left side menu.
- Your storage files will be listed here, browse through any file or folder, and select Share by right clicking on it.
- This will bring up existing shares if any. There can be one or more Shares for File/Folder with different access rights.
- Let us create a new one, click on Create New Share.
- Provide necessary details under the Basic Info.
- Edit on Start-Up Message if you want this message to appear when the user opens the Share. For example disclaimer message.
- Click on the Permission tab.
- Enable access for Can Delete, Can Upload, Can Create Folder and Can Download.
- Email Alerts can be left blank as email is not configured yet.
- on Authentication tab, select Form Based Authentication. Click on New to create a new login profile.
- Please note that login profiles can be reused across multiple Shares.
- Provide a Credentials, save it and thereby select the newly created authentication profile for the this Share.
- Click on Create Share and this share is ready to be shared with users.
The new share that we just created against a file/folder can be shared to your users.
- Right click on the newly created share and select Copy URL, this is the URL to be shared to your users. Alternatively, you can also email it from here, provided email settings are configured.
- To test, please open the copied URL in a new private incognito browser window. This is needed because, both admin and user facing applications are running in same IP, but however during production deployment, this will not be a problem because we will be using proper domain name and and SSL.
- Once the link is opened, it will prompt you for a username and password.
- Provide the credentials as per the login profile. After logging in, you can perform operations such as upload, download, delete, etc on files depending on the access given.
- To view all available shares, go to left side tab Shares.
The FREE edition supports Form, Basic and OTP based authentications. For integrating with external identity providers, and other advanced feature such as document copy protection, digital signature, etc you will have to upgrade to paid edition or make a request for trial key at HERE.
SSL and Domain name
So far, we were able to test using non-SSL, but before going in to production, it is required to setup a SSL certificate and a domain name. NirvaShare requires two domains, one for administration console app and the other one for user facing share service app. It would be better to have two sub domains like below.
- https://admin.yourdomain.com
- https://share.yourdomain.com
For a certificate, make sure to pick one of the below approach.
- Obtain CA certificate for your domain from external authority.
- Use certbot with LetsEncrypt for free certificate.
Since there are multiple ways to configure SSL, chose any one of the option from the following.
Option 1
Use Nginx Proxy Manager service. This is pretty easy to configure and for steps, please refer to SSL with Nginx Proxy Manager
Option 2
Using load balancer. Depending on the cloud platform, you can configure load balancer to have domain and SSL certificates. Refer to respective cloud platform documentation for more information. Below is the documentation for SSL in AWS
Option 3
There are many other means of configuring SSL using servers like Apache2, Jetty, etc. Please check respective websites for more information.
Further any help or support needed in configuration, please contact us at HERE, we will be happy to assist you.