Seafile
| Seafile server
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 Screenshot of the web interface of the Seafile server |
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| developer | Seafile Ltd. |
| Current version | 7.1.4 (May 19, 2020) |
| operating system | Linux , FreeBSD , Windows |
| programming language | C , Python , JavaScript |
| category | File hosting , file sharing , file synchronization |
| License | AGPLv3 / Apache License (Community Edition); proprietary (Professional Edition) |
| German speaking | Yes |
| seafile.com | |
| Seafile Sync Client
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| Basic data
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| developer | Seafile Ltd. |
| Current version | 7.0.8 (June 3, 2020) |
| operating system | Windows , macOS , Linux |
| programming language | C , python |
| License | GPLv2 |
| German speaking | Yes |
| seafile.com | |
| Seafile Mobile App
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| Basic data
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| developer | Seafile Ltd. |
| Current version | 2.2.18 ( Android ) July 16, 2019 2.9.0 ( iOS ) |
| operating system | Android , iOS |
| programming language | C , python |
| License | GPLv3 / Apache license v2 (Android / iOS) |
| German speaking | Yes |
| seafile.com | |
| Seafile Drive Client
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| Basic data
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| developer | Seafile Ltd. |
| Current version | 2.0.2 (May 23, 2020) |
| operating system | Windows , macOS , Linux |
| programming language | C , python |
| License | GNU General Public License, version 3 |
| German speaking | Yes |
| seafile.com | |
Seafile is software from the Chinese company of the same name, with which files can be stored centrally on a server ( file hosting ), shared with other people ( file sharing ) and synchronized between devices ( file synchronization ). The files can be accessed via a web interface as well as desktop clients and mobile apps . Seafile also offers APIs for integration into other applications. The range of functions is similar to that of online services such as B. Dropbox and Google Drive similar. While with the latter public cloud services, the data is stored on the servers of the providers such as Google, with Seafile the files are on your own server if you operate the server in question yourself.
Seafile is available in two editions: The Community Edition (CE) of the Seafile Server is open source software; the Professional Edition (PE) of the server is proprietary software and offers extended functions for use in enterprise environments.
Functions
Core functionalities
The functionality of Seafile is comparable to that of the well-known file sharing service Dropbox and other file sharing providers. The core functions are:
- Central file storage on the server
- Share folders and files with other users
- File and folder sharing via public links with third parties
- Access to the file storage via the network (LAN and / or Internet)
- File synchronization between server and client
Files and folders are organized in libraries in Seafile. The topmost elements in the directory structure are libraries for mapping functional and organizational structures. Libraries generally have an owner (i.e. a user or a group), but can be shared with other users, groups or all users of the Seafile Server, who thereby gain access to the shared objects. The scope of access depends on the type of release. In the Community Edition of Seafile there are three release levels available in the Professional Edition.
To protect the privacy of Seafile users, libraries and folders can be stored encrypted on the Seafile server. These libraries are encrypted on the client side and then saved on the Seafile server. This end-to-end encryption made it possible to operate Seafile without sacrificing the confidentiality of the data on a server that is managed by external administrators (e.g. in a data center).
The file storage on the server can be accessed via a web interface (called Seahub) or via dedicated clients. Seafile offers dedicated clients for Windows, Mac and Linux as well as mobile apps for Android and iOS. Communication with the Seafile server can be encrypted using TLS and thus secured. It is possible to connect several Seafile servers to one client.
To minimize the upload and download volume, Seafile supports delta coding / differential storage for file synchronization . Renaming a file or moving a file in the directory structure also does not trigger a new file transfer. In combination with the storage system optimized for file storage, Seafile is, according to different authors, sometimes better performing than similar solutions for file exchange such as. B. the programs ownCloud and Nextcloud.
Administration and Security
Users can be managed in Seafile via the user management integrated in the web interface or via an LDAP / Active Directory connection. Both variants are possible side by side.
To protect against accidental deletion, deleted files are moved to a recycle bin. Changes to files can be tracked via the version management and older processing statuses can also be restored if necessary.
Since Seafile version 6 there is also the possibility of two-factor authentication using the time-based one-time password algorithm (TOTP). With this, the username and password are the first factor. The second factor is a time-based sequence of digits that can be generated on mobile devices such as smartphones and programs such as FreeOTP or Google Authenticator .
A WebDAV interface is also available, but client-side encryption is not possible with it.
Extended functions of the Seafile Professional Server
The Seafile Professional Edition offers additional functions that make Seafile fit for use in data centers or in enterprise environments with many users. These features include:
- High availability setup in a cluster architecture
- Support of different object stores (e.g. CEPH and Amazon S3 )
- Online cleaning of the database (i.e. without shutting down the server)
- Multi-tenancy support
- Integration of MS Office Online for previewing and editing Office documents
- Audit log for logging registrations, changes to authorizations and accesses
- Integration of an antivirus solution
- Synchronization of users and groups with LDAP / AD directory
Functional extensions of the Seafile Professional Server compared to the Community Edition are:
- Full text research
- File locking of Office documents to avoid version conflicts
- Differentiated access rights for (sub) folders, d. H. Deviation from parent directory items
- Guest accounts without rights to create libraries and groups
- Extended approval levels
Use of the Seafile Community Server
There are no reliable figures about the active Seafile Community Server instances in Germany or Europe, let alone the number of active users. Seafile has enjoyed growing popularity thanks to its low hardware requirements, which allow installation on the Raspberry Pi single-board computer . In addition to the official installation instructions, there are also video tutorials that make self-installation possible for ambitious users.
The Seafile Professional Edition is also partly available free of charge. With up to three active users, a Seafile Professional Server can also be used without a valid license file.
history
The following table shows the version history of the Seafile Professional Server, since the development focused on this edition. Since the release of the Seafile Professional Server with Release 1.7, the Community Edition has been further developed as a functionally reduced version of the Professional Edition.
| version | Release | Function expansions | Remarks |
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| 1.7 | 2012 | n / A | n / A |
| 2.0 | n / A | FSCK utility for checking the database integrity. Support of LDAP |
Conversion of the crypto algorithm for encrypted databases |
| 2.1 | n / A | Support of FUSE and LDAP Public Link function for uploads Captcha function for protection against brute force attacks |
Redesign of the Seahub web interface |
| 2.2 | n / A | n / A | Conversion to the PBKDF2 algorithm and random salt for storing user passwords |
| 3.0 | June 7, 2014 | Support of cross-library copy and move processes | Redesign of the web interface |
| 3.1 | 15th August 2014 | Password protection and time limits for public links. User import via CSV file |
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| 4.0 | December 13, 2014 | Recover deleted data and folders from snapshot | |
| 4.1 | April 1, 2015 |
Support from Shibboleth | Update to Django 1.5 |
| 4.2 | May 29, 2015 |
Direct download link | Conversion from TCP sync protocol to only HTTP / HTTPS sync |
| 4.3 | June 25, 2015 | Library-wise synchronization in the sync client | Removal of the message module Extension of the API |
| 4.4 | October 19, 2015 (stable 4.4.2) |
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| 5.0 | December 4, 2015 (stable 5.0.2) |
Separate recycle bin for each folder. Server configuration via the Seahub web interface |
Changeover from GET to POST requests to increase security. Consolidation of all configuration files in the Conf folder |
| 5.1 | April 8, 2016 (stable 5.1.1) |
Download multiple files via the Seahub web interface | Removal of sub-libraries Change of navigation in web interface Seahub Upgrade to Django 1.8 |
| 6.0 | October 20, 2016 (stable 6.0.2) |
Responsive web interface Seahub Integration of Collabora Online Role-based authorization assignment Two-factor authentication Remote wipe |
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| 6.1 | June 19, 2017 (stable 6.1.1) |
Integration of OnlyOffice | Default deactivation of the wiki function |
| 6.2 | December 12, 2017 (stable 6.2.2) |
Statistics module Release of libraries with admin rights Labels for snapshots of libraries Support of OAuth and Swift v1 protocol |
Conversion to WSGI as the standard mode for the Seahub web interface |
| 6.3 | July 30, 2018 (stable 6.3.2) |
WYSIWYG Markdown Editor Robust Public Links Group Libraries Support for several local storage backends Extension of the API calls for multi tenancy systems |
Upgrade to Django 1.11 Deactivation of the FastCGI mode |
| 7.0 | June 13, 2019 (stable 7.0.3) |
(Public) Wiki File Tagging Column view and context menus in the web interface New share permissions Improved favorites |
Conversion of the web interface to React (formerly Django) Extended comment and editing functions (especially for images / tables) in the Markdown Editor Update to Elasticsearch 5.0 Improved protection of encrypted libraries against brute force attacks |
| 7.1 | April 8, 2020 (stable 7.1.3) |
Improved guest invite function API tokens for libraries |
Changeover from Python 2 to Python 3 Changeover of the system administration to React (formerly Django) |
Technical and licenses
The Seafile Server Community Edition is available for the Linux distributions Debian , Ubuntu and CentOS . There is also a Docker container. A Windows version which, according to the developer, is suitable for smaller installations with a limited number of users, is currently still available for download in the outdated version 6.0.7. The version is provided by Seafile Ltd. but no longer developed. As an alternative, the Docker Container can be used on Windows. For use in even more restricted environments, Seafile also provides a version for the Raspberry Pi . Seafile can also be installed on FreeBSD . This port does not come from the official development team.
The Seafile server web end (Seahub) is published under the Apache license .
The Seafile Server Professional Edition is available for the three Linux distributions Debian, Ubuntu and CentOS as well as a Docker container.
Seafile gains multi-platform capability through the availability of clients for all common operating systems: clients for file synchronization are available for Windows , macOS , Linux and FreeBSD. Clients for integrating the centrally stored files in the form of virtual drives are available for Windows, macOS and Linux. Mobile clients are available for iOS and Android .
Seafile servers and clients consist of different components that are programmed in C , while the web interface (Seahub) is based on the JavaScript software library React . MySQL or MariaDB as well as SQLite can be used as a database .
history
A group of former students from Tsinghua University in Beijing began their work in 2009 on the development of a peer-to-peer-based file hosting solution. With such a solution, which was called Seafile, the developers wanted to create an alternative to solutions with a central server. In 2010, Daniel Pan's development team decided to abandon the original goal and made a technology change to a client-server structure. Such client-server architectures are also used with Dropbox or Google Drive.
In 2012, Daniel Pan, Jonathan Xu, and a number of other developers on the project founded Seafile Ltd. The aim of the company was the development and sale of the self-developed file hosting software.
At the beginning of 2015, Alexander Jackson and Silja Jackson founded the sales company Seafile GmbH. The aim of the establishment was to strengthen sales in Germany and to provide German-speaking support. The GmbH should also offer a public cloud storage service based on Seafile. Seafile Ltd. decided against an equity stake in the newly founded company, but transferred rights of use and made funds available in the form of an interest-free loan. The partnership was abruptly terminated by Seafile GmbH in July 2016. The reasons given were conflicts with the Chinese side regarding product development and customer communication.
The conflict between Seafile Ltd. and Seafile GmbH was amicably settled in spring 2017. Since then, the distribution of Seafile has been taken over by the company datamate from Mainz.
Conflict with PayPal
Due to allegations of violations of PayPal's terms of use , the German Seafile GmbH was asked in June 2016 to check the data flow of Seafile customers for "illegal content". For moral, legal and technical reasons, Seafile did not comply with what PayPal discontinued payment transactions to Seafile, which is why Seafile temporarily continued the chargeable customer accounts free of charge. PayPal then apologized and allowed the use of PayPal again, but Seafile no longer wanted to work with PayPal after the incident and is looking for alternatives.
Conflict between the German Seafile GmbH and the Chinese Seafile Ltd.
On July 21, 2016, the German Seafile GmbH ended the cooperation with the Chinese Seafile Ltd. with immediate effect. and announced that from now on it will work on the development of its own version of the Seafile server (both community and professional version). Seafile GmbH argued that long lasting and insoluble disagreements with the Chinese developers did not allow any other decision. The Chinese Seafile Ltd. published a counter notification a few days later on the Seafile blog. In this, Seafile GmbH was accused of trademark infringements and announced that Seafile GmbH was prohibited from using the proprietary Seafile Pro software. Seafile GmbH, for its part, denied these allegations in a further blog entry, including the legal use of the name Seafile and the source code of the professional version from their point of view .
On September 10, 2016, Seafile GmbH removed the two self-published blog entries on the conflict and the corresponding entry in the Seafile Forum operated by the GmbH without notice. In the forum post it was critically questioned several times whether Seafile GmbH legitimately used the proprietary code of Seafile Ltd. The community recommended using a new name for the fork to avoid confusion with the original project . In contrast to Seafile GmbH, for example, the owncloud fork nextcloud used its own name and the proprietary part of the code was completely rewritten, although the developers would have had access to the code. Since Seafile GmbH announced that it would continue Seafile in its own development branch, this fork has remained with version 5.1.4 without changes.
The legal dispute between Seafile GmbH and Seafile Ltd. was settled in spring 2017 with an out-of-court settlement. In this it was agreed that Seafile Ltd. Receives trademark rights to Seafile and the seafile.de domain. The German Seafile GmbH was allowed to continue to service existing support contracts. The former German sales company was no longer allowed to enter into new contracts for Seafile Professional licenses. In March 2017 the former Seafile GmbH changed its name to Syncwerk GmbH.
See also
Web links
- Official English website (Seafile Ltd.)
- Official German website (Seafile Ltd.)
- GitHub Seafile (Seafile Ltd.)
- English Administrator's Guide (Seafile Ltd.)
- German-language manual for users (Seafile Ltd.)
- Seafile Community Manual (Community Maintained)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Download - Seafile. Retrieved June 4, 2020 .
- ↑ Seafile Server Changelog. Retrieved June 4, 2020 .
- ↑ Seafile server at Freshports
- ↑ Seafile Client Changelog. Retrieved June 4, 2020 .
- ^ Seafile Manual. In: datamate. Retrieved August 13, 2018 .
- ↑ Download page for Android at play.google.com , accessed on July 27, 2019 (partly in English).
- ↑ Preview page for iOS at itunes.apple.com , accessed July 27, 2019 (English and Chinese).
- ^ Seafile Manual. In: datamate. Retrieved August 24, 2018 .
- ↑ SeaDrive Client Changelog. Retrieved June 4, 2020 .
- ↑ Comparison of the Community and Professional Edition of Seafile. In: Seafile. Retrieved November 27, 2018 .
- ↑ plt: Security features · Seafile Server Manual. In: Seafile Server Manual. Retrieved January 17, 2018 .
- ↑ Raspberry Pi: Comparison of Owncloud vs Seafile. Retrieved January 17, 2018 .
- ^ OwnCloud vs Seafile - Performance. Retrieved January 17, 2018 .
- ^ Two-Factor Authentication. In: Seafile Server Manual. Retrieved January 17, 2018 .
- ^ Seafile Ltd .: Feature List. Retrieved January 17, 2018 .
- ↑ Seafile 6 very easy - installation. In: youtube.com. Retrieved January 17, 2018 .
- ^ Seafile Ltd .: Pricing of Pro Edition license. Retrieved January 17, 2018 .
- ↑ Seafile Professional Server Changelog. In: Seafile Server Manual. Retrieved January 24, 2018 .
- ↑ Announcement by the CEO of Seafile Ltd. in the Seafile Forum on September 2, 2018, accessed on October 23, 2018 (English).
- ↑ Seafile Online Manual , accessed June 9, 2015.
- ↑ Seafile-Gui at Freshports
- ↑ Statement about Stopping Cooperation with Seafile GmbH. (No longer available online.) In: Seafile Official Blog. July 22, 2016, archived from the original on October 25, 2016 ; accessed on November 10, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Seafile Partners. Retrieved January 24, 2018 .
- ↑ Axel Kannenberg: Locked out by PayPal: Seafile did not want to spy on users. In: heise online news. Heise Medien GmbH & Co. KG , June 21, 2016, accessed on June 22, 2016 .
- ↑ Blocking: PayPal apologizes to Dropbox alternative Seafile. In: www.golem.de. June 22, 2016. Retrieved June 22, 2016 .
- ↑ To the future of Seafile - Seafile. (No longer available online.) July 21, 2016, formerly in the original ; Retrieved July 25, 2016 . ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Statement about Stopping Cooperation with Seafile GmbH. (No longer available online.) In: Seafile Official Blog. July 22, 2016, archived from the original on October 25, 2016 ; Retrieved July 25, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ About the Statements made by Seafile Ltd. - Seafile. (No longer available online.) July 24, 2016, formerly in the original ; accessed on July 25, 2016 . ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Seafile GmbH removing their statements and a forum thread. In: Seafile Community Forum. Retrieved October 31, 2016 .
- ↑ Syncwerk download. (No longer available online.) In: Syncwerk website. Archived from the original on August 11, 2018 ; accessed on August 11, 2018 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ heise online: Name dispute over Seafile: Agreement between Beijing and Lower Franconia. Retrieved March 9, 2017 .
