Configuring Institutional File Systems

Updated 3 months ago by Vaida

The following information is only applicable to an Enterprise instance of RSpace.

For Filestores tab to be visible in the Gallery the netfilestores.enabled deployment property has to be set to true. RSpace users won't be able to use Filestores until this property is enabled.

Configuring institutional File Systems is a task for system administrators (to see the current File System configuration you need a sysadmin account). As a sysadmin, navigate to the System tab, then click on ‘Configuration’ and ‘Institutional File Systems’ button.

Example File System configuration

Managing File Systems

The ‘institutional File Systems’ page allows you to:

add new File Systems
modify existing File Systems (clicking on ‘Details’ button loads settings of that File System)
delete unused File Systems (that operation fails if users have already created Filestores for that File System)

Adding or modifying a File System

Selecting ‘Details’ of existing File System, or clicking on ‘Add new File System’ button opens new panel, where details of the File System can be set.

Add File System panel

Each File System is a set of a following settings:

Name – that’s the label for the File System that will be displayed to the users
URL – address of the File System server (should start with smb:// for Samba protocol)
Status – whether system is enabled and users can use it
Client type – RSpace supports connecting through SFTP or Samba protocol
Authentication Type – two authentication methods are supported:
a) username/password – user is asked for external system credentials on their first connection to the file system in current session
b) public key authentication – user can generate an SSH key pair with RSpace and register it with local key exchange service. This authentication method is tailored for University of Edinburgh public key infrastructure, so please contact RSpace first if you want to use it in your deployment.

SFTP File System specific options

When configuring SFTP File System you’ll see additional input field for SFTP server public key.

Example File System – SFTP protocol

You need to provide a fingerprint of sftp server public key, so the secure connection can be established by RSpace. The fingerprint has to be in rsa-sha format (not ecdsa).

On the RSpace server it can be obtained by connecting to the file server with

ssh -oHostKeyAlgorithms='ssh-rsa' username@mysftpserver.org

then checking .ssh/known_hosts file on RSpace server. You will see a new entry like this:

|1|R8QLOZYLyYkJNpTKp8hMwGE/aMY=|KW1FpJupAPFHYWr2xi+bPSt/+P4= ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAABAQDIvx0F8VJ9oOLvGNoHTwWW4KRfyU5R5cursUET53aRHTnzDG5X/L8NiP3fqKDhU15uSnbev/zdLR8hJFdqXdTUmRSzCLqr3gn8ADnc7f1/5v5g1/EfZ1Zdx1vV3Bu6OcoSpkvdOxJCgxjKzQP/PsgisCkMf6dWZva90Hrs4SIucq6LH7kJS5aV4vXcW8t6nS5SjU+bnsbyhuDV42L2xFIM89PCkJKEY+rWfiWt/CGiVgWdgmJsgugcXEYhsYYfqgAN+E1UIoWVej/pz7RVPhhYPHEhlXGZFPa+/n/6KofxI+Wz86Gt58+IOsxhlbswet3ubyMWF2Sd7Lshw1RPi0xR

Copy everything after, but not including ssh-rsa

In this example, you would enter the following into the RSpace dialog:

AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAABAQDIvx0F8VJ9oOLvGNoHTwWW4KRfyU5R5cursUET53aRHTnzDG5X/L8NiP3fqKDhU15uSnbev/zdLR8hJFdqXdTUmRSzCLqr3gn8ADnc7f1/5v5g1/EfZ1Zdx1vV3Bu6OcoSpkvdOxJCgxjKzQP/PsgisCkMf6dWZva90Hrs4SIucq6LH7kJS5aV4vXcW8t6nS5SjU+bnsbyhuDV42L2xFIM89PCkJKEY+rWfiWt/CGiVgWdgmJsgugcXEYhsYYfqgAN+E1UIoWVej/pz7RVPhhYPHEhlXGZFPa+/n/6KofxI+Wz86Gt58+IOsxhlbswet3ubyMWF2Sd7Lshw1RPi0xR

For this mechanism to work, it must be possible for RSpace users to authenticate to the file server using username/password credentials. You may need to edit /etc/ssh/sshd_configto enable challenge based-authentication:

ChallengeResponseAuthentication yes

Samba File System specific options

When configuring Samba File System you’ll see additional input field for Samba domain.

You need to provide a Samba domain that users using this File System belong to.

Samba protocol type (since RSpace 1.67)

RSpace provides two connectors allowing connection to Samba servers, both supporting different versions of Samba protocol. To use the original Samba protocol (JCIFS) select 'SMBv1' as a protocol type. If your storage server only supports newer Samba protocol (SMB2/3), then try 'SMBv2/3' type.

When using SMBv2/3 connector you have to provide Share Name. This is usually the first path element after server hostname, e.g. if your Samba store is located at smb://pangolin.researchspace.com/samba-folder, then configure the connector using smb://pangolin.researchspace.com as a URL and samba-folder as a Share Name.