Setting up Seafile for file synchronization and sharing in Ubuntu 20.04

Seafile is a sharing tool with functionality similar to Dropbox. Seafile is the tool of choice if you are tired of using file exchangers, constantly uploading and reuploading information. Seafile on Ubuntu 20.04 will allow you to:

• upload information to a public resource;
• synchronize information from the resource with data from libraries in the locale;
• provide access to individual users (employees, administrators), distribute permissions and do much more.

To install Seafile use real or virtual machines running on the basis of the operating system Ubuntu 20.04. They have requirements for the amount of RAM, the number of processor cores, etc. Seafile can be installed on real or virtual machines. It is better to work from an account without administrator rights / without root permissions (with sudo). The minimum requirements are 4 CPUs and 4 GB RAM.

Step-by-step instructions for setting up Seafile

You may need to configure LDAP, WebDAV protocol, email sending, backups, garbage collection (GC) and other settings to work with the tool.

Step 1: Prepare the system

This requires updating packages ( apt update command), checking time synchronization / time zone and automatic startup settings.

You may also need to work with your firewall (by default in Ubuntu it lets all protocols through, but there may be nuances).

Step 2: Install the utilities and applications needed to work with Seafile

We need to install:

• Memcache, specifying in the configs the amount of memory Memcache can use;

  apt install memcached libmemcached-dev

• Python with all necessary additional components;
• database - MariaDB, MongoDB, Postgresql or others - by command (MariaDB is shown in the example):

  apt install mariadb-server

Step 3: Install Seafile

The command is used for installation:

useradd seafile -r

Depending on the specifics of the project, you may need to create a separate directory where you will upload the installation files:

mkdir -p /opt/seafile/bin

While using the installation wizard, it will be necessary to specify the IP address or server name to connect to. Also, the user will prescribe the server name, which will be public. By default, the service will listen to port 8082, but it can be changed in the settings.