# crazy-file-server

_A heavy-duty web file browser for CRAZY files._



The whole schtick of this program is that it caches the directory and file structures so that the server doesn't have to re-read the disk on every request. By doing the processing upfront when the server starts along with some background scans to keep the cache fresh we can keep requests snappy and responsive.



I needed to serve a very large dataset full of small files publicly over the internet in an easy to browse website. My data was mounted over NFS so I had to take into account network delays. The existing solutions were subpar and I found myself having to create confusing Openresty scripts and complex CDN caching to keep things responsive and server load low. I gave up and decided to create my own solution.



**Features**

- Automated cache management
  - Optionally fill the cache on server start, or as requests come in.
  - Watch for changes or scan interval.
- File browsing API.
- Download API.
- Restrict certain files and directories from the download API to prevent users from downloading your entire 100GB+ dataset.
- Frontend-agnostic design. You can have it serve a simple web interface or just act as a JSON API and serve files.
- Simple resources. The resources for the frontend aren't compiled into the binary which allows you to modify or even replace it.
- Basic searching.
- Elasticsearch integration (to do).


## Install

1. Install Go.
2. Download the binary or do `cd src && go mod tidy && go build`.



## Use

1. Edit `config.yml`. It's well commented.
2. `./crazyfs --config /path/to/config.yml`. You can use `-d` for debug mode to see what it's doing.

By default, it looks for your config in the same directory as the executable: `./config.yml` or `./config.yaml`.

If you're using initial cache and have tons of files to scan you'll need at least 5GB of RAM and will have to wait 10 or so minutes for it to traverse the directory structure. CrazyFS is heavily threaded so you'll want at least an 8-core machine.

The search endpoint searches through the cached files. If they aren't cached, they won't be found. Enable pre-cache at startup to cache everything.