File Manager like Windows Explorer from GUI with indexed search please

[esamett]

There is a closed post about file manager from 2011. I was researching using file indexing for my NAS from Windows 7 and it is apparently not possible. I am running a small SSD as my boot drive for windows and can't try anything that would fill that up anyway. A FreeNAS file manager from within GUI or perhaps a plugin/jail would be a terrific addition, particularly if indexing would be available.

Thanks,

evan

 

[cyberjock]

Yeah.. not gonna happen. Too much of a security risk. Been discussed and rejected about 20 times already.

But, there's nothing stopping you from setting one up in a jail and using that. ;)

 

[esamett]

That makes sense. I am fortunate to not have the skills to do myself.

Any comment on indexing from windows side?

Thanks

 

[cyberjock]

Nope.. discussed that twice in the last two weeks already. Please see my responses in those threads.

 

[cyberjock]

Sorry but no.. discussed that twice in the last two weeks already. Please see my responses in those threads.

 

[anodos]

There is a closed post about file manager from 2011. I was researching using file indexing for my NAS from Windows 7 and it is apparently not possible. I am running a small SSD as my boot drive for windows and can't try anything that would fill that up anyway. A FreeNAS file manager from within GUI or perhaps a plugin/jail would be a terrific addition, particularly if indexing would be available.

Thanks,

evan

You know I work with windows servers every day. The only times I RDP into one of them to use a file manager is when I'm dealing with old systems that were improperly administered.

The simple fact of the matter is that if you are administering a file server right you should never need to run a file manager locally.

As far as light-weight indexing goes, you can look into locate32. Though I prefer the old-school method of making a sane / understandable file tree.

 

[Ericloewe]

You know I work with windows servers every day. The only times I RDP into one of them to use a file manager is when I'm dealing with old systems that were improperly administered.

The simple fact of the matter is that if you are administering a file server right you should never need to run a file manager locally.

As far as light-weight indexing goes, you can look into locate32. Though I prefer the old-school method of making a sane / understandable file tree.

I'd add an exception to what you said:

The one thing I love about WHS 2011 is how easy it was to migrate away from - RDP in, connect to FreeNAS server, copy stuff over with Windows Explorer.

 

[esamett]

Please excuse my combining two somewhat unrelated issues:
1. Indexing FreeNAS from Windows: If available it would make it faster for my family to complete searches for files. ("Daddy, where is <file name>?") From my reading it is not a viable option from Windows 7 in my case. This led me to inquire about the possibility of this function from a FreeNAS standpoint:

2. FreeNAS graphical file manager: It would be nice to be able to perform large data transfers within my NAS with a graphical interface without having to use my gigabit backbone via my PC. It would have the advantages to me of the much greater speed of internal file operations and the theoretical piece of mind of keeping my data transfers to a system with ECC memory. While possible to achieve these goals using the command line it is cumbersome for me, having not yet mastered the language and its quirks, eg:
https://bugs.freenas.org/issues/5854

Regards,

evan

 

[nanopete]

Hi Guys!
On the subject, but more about GUI graphical manager and less not about indexing for searching (tell me if I should put this somewhere else).

Using a freenas as a homeuser backup system, I often find I want to sort some stuff. Often when I have time for that I am not at home, so I do it over SSH and command line (actually I guess I always do it over SSH and CL).
Writing the long file-/directory names is a chore. Could the solution be a setup up of a graphical instance in a Jail, PC-BSD or something and then remotely connecting to that? So that I can have a graphical file manager for managing my stuff locally on the server? Copying and moving files to and from the server (I don't want them to go on a run-trip to the computer I'm using)

I'm sure that can be done in various ways, but if a freenas/freebsd-guru could give me a pointer to what might be the easiest way that would be great :)
Maybe there's something I don't know about the command line that would make it much easier dealing with long file and directory names? Dragging and dropping just seems much easier.

Thank you :)

 

[anodos]

Hi Guys!
On the subject, but more about GUI graphical manager and less not about indexing for searching (tell me if I should put this somewhere else).

Using a freenas as a homeuser backup system, I often find I want to sort some stuff. Often when I have time for that I am not at home, so I do it over SSH and command line (actually I guess I always do it over SSH and CL).
Writing the long file-/directory names is a chore. Could the solution be a setup up of a graphical instance in a Jail, PC-BSD or something and then remotely connecting to that? So that I can have a graphical file manager for managing my stuff locally on the server? Copying and moving files to and from the server (I don't want them to go on a run-trip to the computer I'm using)

I'm sure that can be done in various ways, but if a freenas/freebsd-guru could give me a pointer to what might be the easiest way that would be great :)
Maybe there's something I don't know about the command line that would make it much easier dealing with long file and directory names? Dragging and dropping just seems much easier.

Thank you :)

You can use the 'tab' key in the terminal to auto-complete file names. It's super-convenient, and thanks to it I find accidental tabs in the middle of documents I write. On that note, enable ssh and use putty. The webgui 'shell' is excruciatingly terrible.

If you enable ssh, you can use an sftp client to move files around. Examples of such clients are filezilla and winscp. I prefer winscp because it doesn't try to install the 'ask toolbar' or such nonsense.

If you have primarily cifs shares, use Windows explorer or robocopy. If you are using Windows 8, then moving files around a cifs share happens entirely server-side (but not copying between shares).

Moving files between datasets will always be somewhat slow because datasets are separate filesystems, and freenas has to copy the file and then remove the original.

 

[nanopete]

You can use the 'tab' key in the terminal to auto-complete file names. It's super-convenient, and thanks to it I find accidental tabs in the middle of documents I write. On that note, enable ssh and use putty. The webgui 'shell' is excruciatingly terrible.

If you enable ssh, you can use an sftp client to move files around. Examples of such clients are filezilla and winscp. I prefer winscp because it doesn't try to install the 'ask toolbar' or such nonsense.

If you have primarily cifs shares, use Windows explorer or robocopy. If you are using Windows 8, then moving files around a cifs share happens entirely server-side (but not copying between shares).

Moving files between datasets will always be somewhat slow because datasets are separate filesystems, and freenas has to copy the file and then remove the original.

Can't believe all the things I've been writing without tab... Thank you very much anodos and for a generally informative answer :)
I know if I'd been through some thorough UNIX/freebsd reading I would probably know that, but that's hard to motivate yourself to do without a project.

follow up question on sftp clients such as filezilla and winscp, do you know if there is a way to move/cp files from server to server without going to sftp client location?
I think there's some protocol called FXP designed for ftp server1 to server2 direct transfers, but when I tried a program capable of that (sorry I've forgotten what it was) it didn't let me connect twice to server1 so that I that I could get server1 to server1 transfers.

 

[anodos]

Can't believe all the things I've been writing without tab... Thank you very much anodos and for a generally informative answer :)
I know if I'd been through some thorough UNIX/freebsd reading I would probably know that, but that's hard to motivate yourself to do without a project.

follow up question on sftp clients such as filezilla and winscp, do you know if there is a way to move/cp files from server to server without going to sftp client location?
I think there's some protocol called FXP designed for ftp server1 to server2 direct transfers, but when I tried a program capable of that (sorry I've forgotten what it was) it didn't let me connect twice to server1 so that I that I could get server1 to server1 transfers.

You can use scp or rsync to accomplish that. scp is fairly easy to use. If you want to move a the directory "/mnt/Tank/foo" on your server to /mnt/Tank/bar/foo on a remote server at 192.168.10.42 using the user account "bob" on the remote server, then you just type: "scp -r /mnt/Tank/foo bob@192.168.10.42:/mnt/Tank/bar/"

 

[pirateghost]

You can use the 'tab' key in the terminal to auto-complete file names. It's super-convenient, and thanks to it I find accidental tabs in the middle of documents I write. On that note, enable ssh and use putty. The webgui 'shell' is excruciatingly terrible.

If you enable ssh, you can use an sftp client to move files around. Examples of such clients are filezilla and winscp. I prefer winscp because it doesn't try to install the 'ask toolbar' or such nonsense.

If you have primarily cifs shares, use Windows explorer or robocopy. If you are using Windows 8, then moving files around a cifs share happens entirely server-side (but not copying between shares).

Moving files between datasets will always be somewhat slow because datasets are separate filesystems, and freenas has to copy the file and then remove the original.

Filezilla downloaded from source forge is at fault there. That's source forge's doing, not filezilla.

 

[anodos]

Filezilla downloaded from source forge is at fault there. That's source forge's doing, not filezilla.

No, it's supported by the filezilla dev. See here: https://forum.filezilla-project.org/viewtopic.php?t=30240

 

[pirateghost]

No, it's supported by the filezilla dev. See here: https://forum.filezilla-project.org/viewtopic.php?t=30240

It's not supported by the dev, he just doesn't mind it being bundled by source forge. It's still a source forge implemented ad wrapper. Doesnt come from the dev that way

 

[cyberjock]

It's not supported by the dev, he just doesn't mind it being bundled by source forge. It's still a source forge implemented ad wrapper. Doesnt come from the dev that way

I'm not sure that statement is correct.

I thought I read that the devs don't like it (versus them not minding it being there), but they can't pay Sourceforge's "ransom" to not have that included when you download from sourceforge. Am I mistaken?

 

[anodos]

It's not supported by the dev, he just doesn't mind it being bundled by source forge. It's still a source forge implemented ad wrapper. Doesnt come from the dev that way

By "it's supported by the dev", I meant "he doesn't appear to mind it being there". I tend to imprecisely use natural languages, which, unsurprisingly, routinely gets me in trouble. :D

But back to my original point.... winscp doesn't appear to have any of that drama, and I like having the "open with putty" button.

 

[nanopete]

To answer back on my own request for a graphical, but local file-manager (for all local transfers) controlled from a remote place;
I'm going for a virtualbox image and a slim but graphical Xubuntu image with an easy accessable teamviewer server installed.

 

[pirateghost]

To answer back on my own request for a graphical, but local file-manager (for all local transfers) controlled from a remote place;
I'm going for a virtualbox image and a slim but graphical Xubuntu image with an easy accessable teamviewer server installed.

I would think that a jail with extplorer would be the lighter, faster, better option....

 

[nanopete]

Looks like you're right, looks pretty smart extplorer, thank you
Have to try out Xubuntu too now though, it's really easy with virtualbox.