Community File Repository (CFR)

Overview

CFR (Community File Repository) is a new CTool made by Webdetails that allows you to setup and use a file repository from inside or outside Pentaho. You can use it to manage your file needs, allowing uploads and downloads from inside your dashboards.

Motivation

Frequently we come across several file management needs in the context of the Pentaho platform:

• A user that wishes to let the users browse and download some documents when viewing a dashboard;
• An easy way for a user to upload some files to the BA Server (maybe to be used by an ETL job);
• The ability to explore, create and delete items in the Solution Repository when in a dashboard.

As always, when we are faced with the same kind of task more than twice, we start to wonder whether we couldn't build a CTool that could help us (and the community) automating that task. In this scenario, we came up with CFR - Community File Repository.

Requirements and Compatibility

This plugin was built and tested against Pentaho 5.3, but should be compatible with earlier releases up to Pentaho 4.8.

As most of the other ctools, it also requires CDE, CDA and CDF. Make sure that you have updated versions of these plugins when you install CFR.

Main features

• Ability to upload and download files from the repository
• Ability to create folders and delete items from the repository
• Provides an audit database which lets you track who changed the repository and when.
• Provides a FileBrowser component for CDE that lets you browse the repository
• Provides a FileUploader component for CDE that lets you upload files to the repository
• Two distinct repositories are available (just change a configuration setting):
  • Pentaho Solution Repository (whether DB or File based)
  • Filesystem Based repository (based on a folder in your BA Server machine or some other accessible machine)

Install & Config

This is a Pentaho plugin, so you can install it as as you would do it with any other plugin (unzip the contents into your pentaho-solutions/system folder). It will soon be available to download and install from within the Pentaho Marketplace

Build and install the plugin

Here are the instructions if you want to manually build the plugin:

• Clone public Git repository available [here](the https://github.com/webdetails/cfr.git)
• To build the plugin, you can run use the command line: ant dist-plugin. This will create a .zip file inside the /dist folder
• Unzip the file and copy the entire cfr folder to your system folder, located inside your pentaho-solutions folder

Settings

Inside your plugin folder there is a file named cfr.spring.xml where you can define how the plugin's behaviour.

Files and folders are by default stored in system/.cfr. You can also configure some other root folder by editing the configuration file cfr.spring.xml and adding an attribute for your file repository with the full name of the starting folder.

	<property name="basePath">
	    <value>
	        path/to/cfr/uploads
	    </value>
	</property>

You can define another class, changing the value of repositoryClass. Right now, you can choose pt.webdetails.cfr.repository.PentahoRepositoryFileRepository for the Pentaho Solution Repository or pt.webdetails.cfr.repository.DefaultFileRepository for a file system based repository.

You can roll up your own version of a repository or develop a wrapper to whatever you’re using to manage your files. Just implement the pt.webdetails.cfr.repository.IFileRepository, drop the resulting class or jar in the system/cfr/lib folder and reference the class from cfr.spring.xml.

<repositoryClass>
	pt.webdetails.cfr.repository.IFileRepository
</repositoryClass>

Security

There is a basic security setting you can activate, to better control what gets uploaded through cfr.

You can edit cfr.properties in pentaho-solutions/system/cfr to see which options you can activate:

• upload.security.matchers=ext,wht,blk
• upload.security.whitelist=text/plain
• upload.security.blacklist=application/pdf

There are currently 3 security matchers:

• ext - Extension, using Apache Tika, CFR will match the file extension, with the mime type of the content, if they match, the file can be uploaded.
• wht - Whitelist, this is a mime type list, if the content's mime type is in this list, then the extension won't matter, the file can be uploaded.
• blk - Blacklist, this is a mime type list, if the content's mime type is in this list, then neither the extension nor the whitelist will matter, the file cannot be uploaded.

They are all comma separated lists, so you can have several whitelisted and/or blacklisted mime types

Ex:

upload.security.matchers=wht,blk
upload.security.whitelist=text/plain,application/pdf,text/html
upload.security.blacklist=application/pdf,text/csv

Note that the blacklist has the final saying in deciding whether the file can or can't be uploaded. So in the example above, "application/pdf" cannot be uploaded, even though it is whitelisted.

You can have multiple matchers active at one time, or just one:

• upload.security.matchers=ext -> Checks content mime type agains the file extension mime type.
• upload.security.matchers=wht -> Checks if content mime type is in the whitelist.
• upload.security.matchers=blk -> Checks if content mime type is not in the blacklist.

By default no verifications are made, you must explicitly activate this configuration.

Working with the plugin

The plugin can be accessed via a user interface UI or using web requests.

User Interface

You can manage the plugin via a friendly user interface

User interface URL: http://<pentaho-ba-server-host>:<port>/pentaho/plugin/cfr/api/home

It will be presented a page where you can upload or download files (choosing a folder outside the pentaho repository allows you to manage the files with traditional file operations "copy/move")

Web Requests

Files and folders operations

To create, delete, list or get files and folders there are some exposed interfaces you can use.

Exposed Interfaces

Base URL: http://<pentaho-ba-server-host>:<port>/pentaho/plugin/cfr/api/

• /createFolder --> creates a folder

  • Query Parameters:**
    • path --> specifies the folder we want to create Examples:
    • /createFolder?path=/folder/subfolder --> creates the specified folder

• /remove --> removes a file from a folder

  • Query Parameters:
    • fileName --> specifies the file or folder to delete
  • Examples:
    • /remove?path=/folder/subfolder/file.txt --> removes the file with name "file.txt" located inside "subfolder"
    • /remove?path=/folder/subfolder --> removes folder with name subfolder

• /listFilesJSON --> returns a Json object with all the files and folder. Gets the root folder if no parameter is specified

  • Query Parameters:
    • dir --> (optional) specifies which folder we want to list content from
  • Examples:
    • /listFilesJSON --> returns a Json object with all files and folders in the root dir
    • /listFilesJSON?dir=/folder/subfolder --> returns a Json object with all the file elements inside the specified folder

• /createFolder --> creates a folder

  • Query Parameters:
    • path --> specifies the folder we want to create
  • Examples:
    • /createFolder?path=/folder/subfolder --> creates the specified folder

• /getFile --> returns the specified file only if the user has read permissions on it

  • Query Parameters:

    • fileName --> specifies the file we want to retrieve, with the path relative to the repository root

  • Examples:

    • /getFile?fileName=/example.txt -> retrieves the example.txt file stored in the root folder of the repository

• /viewFile --> if called in a browser and supported by the browser itself the specified file is previewed in it, but only if the user has read permissions on it

  • Query Parameters:
    • fileName --> specifies the file we want to preview/retrieve, with the path relative to the repository root
  • Examples:
    • /viewFile?fileName=/example.txt -> retrieves the example.txt file stored in the root folder and it is called in a browser. The file is rendered directly inside the browser (if supported)

Permissions management

The access to the files repository is granted by default to the files owner and to all the user administrators. If granting access to files to other users is needed it must be set using the interfaces exposed below.

Exposed Interfaces

** Base URL: ** http://<pentaho-ba-server-host>:<port>/pentaho/content/cfr for Pentaho 4.x ** http://<pentaho-ba-server-host>:<port>/pentaho/plugin/cfr/api for Pentaho 5.0

• /setPermissions --> Setting permissions is only allowed to the folder/file owner to which we want to set permissions or to any system administrator

  • Query Parameters:

    • path --> specifies the folder or file in which we want to set the permissions
    • id --> specifies the role or username to which we want to grant the permissions
    • permission --> this is an optional parameter, by default it assumes the "read only" value. It is used to specify the permissions to be granted [for now only the "read" permissions are handled]

  • Examples:

    • /setPermissions?path=/test/&id=suzy --> sets read permissions for user suzy on repository folder test/ [this allows access to all the files contained in the folder]
    • /setPermissions?path=test.txt&id=joe --> sets read permissions for user joe on file test.txt
    • /setPermissions?path=/&id=suzy&permission=read&permission=write --> sets read and write permissions for user suzy on repository root folder [this functionality isn't yet totally implemented]

• /getPermissions

  • Query Parameters:
    • path --> specifies the folder or file in which we want to check the permissions
    • id --> specifies the role or username to which we want to check the permissions
• • /deletePermissions * --> deleting permissions is only allowed to the folder/file owner or to any system administrator
    • Query Parameters:
      • path --> specifies the folder or file in which we want to revoke permissions
      • id --> specifies the role or username to which we want to revoke the permissions
    • Examples:
      • /deletePermissions?path=test.txt&id=suzy --> revokes permission to file test.txt to user suzy

##FAQ

0. How do I change the type of repository ?

   • Edit settings.xml and change the value of repositoryClass. Right now, you can choose pt.webdetails.cfr.repository.PentahoRepositoryFileRepository for the Pentaho Solution Repository or pt.webdetails.cfr.repository.DefaultFileRepository for a file system based repository.

1. How can I use another repository ?

   • You can roll up your own version of a repository or develop a wrapper to whatever you’re using to manage your files. Just implement the pt.webdetails.cfr.repository.IFileRepository, drop the resulting class or jar in the system/cfr/lib folder and reference the class from settings.xml.

2. Where are the files stored in the DefaultFileRepository?

   • They are stored in system/.cfr. You can also configure some other root folder by editing settings.xml and adding an attribute defaultFileRepositoryRoot with the full name of the starting folder for your repository.

3. Can I upload a file over a web request?

   • Yes, we can build and execute a POST request specifying the correct options. For more details on this, please contact Webdetails