Tasks

  • Create a Seafile service user
  • Install Seafile Server
  • Change Seafile Server data location
  • Enable Seafile Server autostart

Create system user

Create a user and his own group to run the Seafile Server. We choose the name seafserver for the user as well as for his group. useradd -h for a short help of the switches.

root@cloudserver:~# mkdir /opt/seafile
root@cloudserver:~# useradd -U -m -d /opt/seafile seafserver

You can check the result:

root@cloudserver:~#  ls -l /opt/seafile/
total 4
drwxr-xr-x 2 seafserver seafserver 4096 Jul  3 17:10 Server
root@cloudserver:~#  grep seafserver /etc/passwd
seafserver:x:1001:1001::/opt/seafile:
root@cloudserver:~#  grep seafserver /etc/group
seafserver:x:1001:

Install Seafile Server

We will install Seafile Server in /opt/seafile, Seafile data in /srv/seafile_data.

Install required packages

Debian

root@cloudserver:~# apt-get update && apt-get install python-setuptools python-imaging \
python-ldap python-mysqldb python-memcache python-urllib3

Ubuntu

root@cloudserver:~# apt-get update && apt-get install python-setuptools python-imaging \
python-ldap python-mysqldb python-memcache python-urllib3

CentOS

root@cloudserver:~# yum install python-setuptools python-imaging \
python-ldap python-mysqldb python-memcache python-urllib3

Arch Linux | ARM

root@cloudserver:~#  pacman -S base-devil wget python2 python2-requests python2-imaging python2-ldap python2-pip python2-numpy mysql-python 
root@cloudserver:~# cower -d libsepol libselinux && cd libsepol && makepk -si && cd .. && cd libselinux && makepk -si

Change the arch arch=('i686' 'x86_64' 'armv6h') to arch=('any') if you're using the Pi 3.

root@cloudserver:~# pip2 install --upgrade pip && pip2 install pillow moviepy captcha

Download latest stable Seafile Server package

  • 64 Bit

Download the lastest Seafile Server package from here and put it in /opt/Seafile/installed. Adjust the version number.

root@cloudserver:~#  mkdir /opt/seafile/installed
root@cloudserver:~#  wget -P /opt/seafile/installed https://download.seadrive.org/seafile-server_6.2.3_x86-64.tar.gz
  • Raspberry Pi

Download the lastest Seafile Server package from here and put it in /opt/Seafile/installed. Adjust the version number.

root@cloudserver:~#  mkdir /opt/seafile/installed
root@cloudserver:~#  wget -P /opt/seafile/installed https://github.com/haiwen/seafile-rpi/releases/download/v6.3.4/seafile-server_6.3.4_stable_pi.tar.gz

Untar the package

root@cloudserver:~# tar -xz -C /opt/seafile -f /opt/seafile/installed/seafile-server_*

It should look something like this:

root@cloudserver:~# ls -l /opt/seafile
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jul  3 17:22 installed
drwxrwxr-x 6  500  500 4096 Jun 13 07:52 seafile-server-6.2.3

Configure Seafile Server and databases

# Create the seafile data folder
root@cloudserver:~# mkdir /srv/seafile-data

# Run the seafile server setup script
root@cloudserver:~# /bin/bash /opt/seafile/seafile-server-*/setup-seafile-mysql.sh
Task Action
[ server name ] < Servername >
[ This server's ip or domain ] < Server's DNS or IP address >
[ default "/opt/seafile/seafile-data" ] "/srv/seafile-data"
[ default "8082" ] < leave the port as it is >
[ 1 or 2 ] "1 (create new databases)"
[ default "localhost" ] < database runs on this server >
[ default "3306" ] < standard port for mysql or mariadb >
[ root password ] < enter DB server root password >
[ default "seafile" ] < it's the name of the user in mariadb >
[ password for seafile ] < give the user a password, no need to remember >
[ default "ccnet-db" ] < >
[ default "seafile-db" ] < >
[ default "seahub-db" ] < >

Set file and folder permission

Now the user seafserver needs to own the whole stuff:

root@cloudserver:~# chown -R seafserver:seafserver /opt/seafile  /srv/seafile-data

It should look like this:

root@cloudserver:~# ls -l /opt/seafile
total 20
drwx------ 2 seafserver seafserver 4096 Jul  3 17:59 ccnet
drwx------ 2 seafserver seafserver 4096 Jul  3 17:59 conf
drwxr-xr-x 2 seafserver seafserver 4096 Jul  3 17:22 installed
drwxrwxr-x 6 seafserver seafserver 4096 Jun 13 07:52 seafile-server-6.1.1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 seafserver seafserver   20 Jul  3 17:59 seafile-server-latest -> seafile-server-6.1.1
drwxr-xr-x 3 seafserver seafserver 4096 Jul  3 17:59 seahub-data
root@cloudserver:~# ls -l /srv
total 4
drwx------ 3 seafserver seafserver 4096 Jul  3 17:59 seafile-data

First Start of Seafile Server

We can start Seafile Server as user seafserver

root@cloudserver:~# su -l seafserver
$ seafile-server-latest/seafile.sh start
$ seafile-server-latest/seahub.sh start
Task Action
[ admin email ] < enter the mail address you'll use as admin account >
[ admin password ] < give it a password >
[ admin password again ] < password again >

Change of Seafile-data location

Stop Seafile Server

$ seafile-server-latest/seahub.sh stop
$ seafile-server-latest/seafile.sh stop
$ exit

There is some data located in the /opt directory. We need to move the data to /srv and change this.

RECOMMENDED: Change config file

Change the config file path to let seafile server access it's data directory:

root@cloudserver:~# mv /opt/seafile/seahub-data /srv/seahub-data/
root@cloudserver:~# echo '/srv/seahub-data' > /opt/seafile/ccnet/seafile.ini

ALTERNATIVE: Symlink

Create a symlink to let seafile server access it's data directory:

root@cloudserver:~# mv /opt/seafile/seahub-data /srv/seahub-data/
root@cloudserver:~# ln -s /opt/seafile/seahub-data /srv/seahub-data

At least start your Seafile Server again as user 'seafserver' to check it's still working. Stop Seafile Server before proceeding to the next step.

Verification

Use nmap to check the necessary ports are open. 22 is SSH, only open if you installed SSH server. 3306 is mariadb, only bound to localhost, not accessible from outside via network. 8000 is seahub, the web interface. 8082 is seafile, the data service daemon:

$ nmap localhost

Starting Nmap 7.40 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2017-07-04 06:53 EDT
Nmap scan report for localhost (127.0.0.1)
Host is up (0.000025s latency).
Other addresses for localhost (not scanned): ::1
Not shown: 996 closed ports
PORT     STATE SERVICE
22/tcp   open  ssh
3306/tcp open  mysql
8000/tcp open  http-alt
8082/tcp open  blackice-alerts

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 0.03 seconds
$ nmap <Server IP>

Starting Nmap 7.40 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2017-07-04 06:59 EDT
Nmap scan report for <Server IP>
Host is up (0.000024s latency).
Not shown: 997 closed ports
PORT     STATE SERVICE
22/tcp   open  ssh
8000/tcp open  http-alt
8082/tcp open  blackice-alerts

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 0.03 seconds

For a test open a web browser and log into your new Seafile Server:

http://<Server IP>/8000/

Enable Seafile Server autostart (systemd)

For a convenient start of Seafile Server we need some appropriate definition files for the operating system. Debian 9/Ubuntu/CentOS use systemd as init system, so we create service files for systemd.

Create a file /etc/systemd/system/seafile.service with the following contents:

[Unit]
Description=Seafile
# add mysql.service or postgresql.service depending on your database to the line below
After=network.target mysql.service

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/opt/seafile/seafile-server-latest/seafile.sh start
ExecStop=/opt/seafile/seafile-server-latest/seafile.sh stop
RemainAfterExit=yes
User=seafserver
Group=seafserver

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Create another file /etc/systemd/system/seahub.service with this contents:

[Unit]
Description=Seafile hub
After=network.target seafile.service

[Service]
# change start to start-fastcgi if you want to run fastcgi
ExecStart=/opt/seafile/seafile-server-latest/seahub.sh start
ExecStop=/opt/seafile/seafile-server-latest/seahub.sh stop
User=seafserver
Group=seafserver
Type=oneshot
RemainAfterExit=yes

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Reload the systemd configuration:

root@cloudserver:~# systemctl daemon-reload

Now you should be able to start your Seafile Server like any other ordinary service:

root@cloudserver:~# systemctl start seafile
root@cloudserver:~# systemctl start seahub

Verify if it is working (web browser: http://<Server IP>:8000/)

You can stop Seafile Server:

root@cloudserver:~# systemctl stop seahub
root@cloudserver:~# systemctl stop seafile

To start Seafile Server at system startup the services need to be enabled:

root@cloudserver:~# systemctl enable seafile
Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/seafile.service → /etc/systemd/system/seafile.service.
root@cloudserver:~# systemctl enable seahub
Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/seahub.service → /etc/systemd/system/seahub.service.

To verify the automatic startup you need to reboot your server and afterwards Seafile Server should be running.
But you can do a reboot later. Continue with the next step.