FUSE extension¶

Files in the seafile system are split to blocks, which means what are stored on your seafile server are not complete files, but blocks. This design faciliates effective data deduplication.

However, administrators sometimes want to access the files directly on the server. You can use seaf-fuse to do this.

Seaf-fuse is an implementation of the FUSE virtual filesystem. In a word, it mounts all the seafile files to a folder (which is called the '''mount point'''), so that you can access all the files managed by seafile server, just as you access a normal folder on your server.

Note:

Encrypted folders can't be accessed by seaf-fuse.
Currently the implementation is '''read-only''', which means you can't modify the files through the mounted folder.
One debian/centos systems, you need to be in the "fuse" group to have the permission to mount a FUSE folder.

Use seaf-fuse in binary based deployment¶

Assume we want to mount to /data/seafile-fuse.

Create the folder as the mount point¶

mkdir -p /data/seafile-fuse

Start seaf-fuse with the script¶

Note: Before start seaf-fuse, you should have started seafile server with ./seafile.sh start.

./seaf-fuse.sh start /data/seafile-fuse

seaf-fuse supports standard mount options for FUSE. For example, you can specify ownership for the mounted folder:

./seaf-fuse.sh start -o uid=<uid> /data/seafile-fuse

The fuse enables the block cache function by default to cache block objects, thereby reducing access to backend storage, but this function will occupy local disk space. Since Seafile-pro-10.0.0, you can disable block cache by adding following options:

./seaf-fuse.sh start --disable-block-cache /data/seafile-fuse

You can find the complete list of supported options in man fuse.

Stop seaf-fuse¶

./seaf-fuse.sh stop

Contents of the mounted folder¶

The top level folder¶

Now you can list the content of /data/seafile-fuse.

$ ls -lhp /data/seafile-fuse

drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4.0K Jan  1  2015 abc@abc.com/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4.0K Jan  4  2015 foo@foo.com/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4.0K Jan  1  2015 plus@plus.com/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4.0K Jan  1  2015 sharp@sharp.com/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4.0K Jan  3  2015 test@test.com/

The top level folder contains many subfolders, each of which corresponds to a user

The folder for each user¶

$ ls -lhp /data/seafile-fuse/abc@abc.com

drwxr-xr-x 2 root root  924 Jan  1  1970 5403ac56-5552-4e31-a4f1-1de4eb889a5f_Photos/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1.6K Jan  1  1970 a09ab9fc-7bd0-49f1-929d-6abeb8491397_My Notes/

From the above list you can see, under the folder of a user there are subfolders, each of which represents a library of that user, and has a name of this format: '''{library_id}-{library-name}'''.

The folder for a library¶

$ ls -lhp /data/seafile-fuse/abc@abc.com/5403ac56-5552-4e31-a4f1-1de4eb889a5f_Photos/

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 501K Jan  1  2015 image.png
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 501K Jan  1  2015 sample.jpng

If you get a "Permission denied" error¶

If you get an error message saying "Permission denied" when running ./seaf-fuse.sh start, most likely you are not in the "fuse group". You should:

Add yourself to the fuse group

sudo usermod -a -G fuse <your-user-name>

Logout your shell and login again
Now try ./seaf-fuse.sh start <path>again.

Use seaf-fuse in Docker based deployment¶

Assume we want to mount to /data/seafile-fuse in host.

Modify docker-compose.yml¶

Add the following content

  seafile:
    ...
    volumes:
      ...
      - type: bind
        source: /data/seafile-fuse
        target: /seafile-fuse
        bind:
          propagation: rshared
    privileged: true
    cap_add:
      - SYS_ADMIN

Start seaf-fuse with the script in docker¶

Start Seafile server and enter the container

docker compose up -d

docker exec -it seafile bash

Start seaf-fuse in the container

cd /opt/seafile/seafile-server-latest/

./seaf-fuse.sh start /seafile-fuse