nginx file browser

This web application is a very simple file browser which can be used effectively together with nginx's autoindex module.

A sample nginx configuration is also included which mounts file browser under root (/) and mounts files to be listed under /files path. Hence is the filesBaseUrl under

Using with docker

Mainly for demonstration purposes a docker image is also available here. In order to use this docker image, the volume which has to be served should be mounted under /opt/www/files/ and port 80 of container shall be mapped to a proper port on host. A proper run would look like:

$ docker run -p 8080:80 -v /path/to/my/files/:/opt/www/files/ mohamnag/nginx-file-browser

With container up and running you can point your browser to IP of docker host with given port to view the files. For example with above run command assuming docker host having IP with 192.168.0.200 we have to navigate to this URL:

http://192.168.0.200:8080

Symlinks

Be very careful with symlinks, they can expose very important files of system to outside world!

If you have symlinks inside files dir that you want to be able to browse too, the alias path where /files is served by nginx has to be changed to match the same path outside your docker container. Lets say I have a directory with path /home/myuser/files-to-serve/. Which has two directories named dir1 and dir2. where dir1 is nothing more than a symlink to dir2. In order to be able to browse dir1 (inside dir2) on file browser, following have to be done:

Inside default.conf this line

    alias /opt/www/files/;

shall be changed to

    alias /home/myuser/files-to-serve/;

And the mounting point is now /home/myuser/files-to-serve/ instead of /opt/www/files/.