Turn off sharing in the Share API for an external filesystem

[rperezb]

I want to be able to turn off sharing completely from admin settings.

[rperezb]

cc/ @MTRichards @DeepDiver1975

[karlitschek]

You can disable the sharing app

[rperezb]

Yes, what I expect to do is disable share completely not only the sharing api.
This is specially useful for external storage

[DeepDiver1975]

I want to be able to turn off sharing completely from admin settings.

@rperezb If I recall our conversation correctly - we want to be able to give an external storage the possibility to tell the core if sharing is allowed of not. And therefore we need this requirement.

Right?

[MTRichards]

This is correct.

It should be possible to turn sharing off by external storage location, as some external storage is by its very nature a sharing point all by itself. The API then needs to be able to tell that sharing is allowed or disabled by storage location, so that it can intelligently respond to a remote sharing request.

As an admin, I want to be able to turn sharing on or off based on storage location so that I can keep an existing sharing setup in production (such as windows shared directories) without breaking ACLs, while also allowing sharing on primary storage or another secondary storage backend, such as FTP or s3,

[DeepDiver1975]

As an admin, I want to be able to turn sharing on or off based on storage location so that I can keep an existing sharing setup in production (such as windows shared directories) without breaking ACLs, while also allowing sharing on primary storage or another secondary storage backend, such as FTP or s3,

Is that really an admin setting? From my understanding the information if sharing on the external fs is possible or not is only known by the storage itself

[MTRichards]

We have both scenarios. Some back ends have optional sharing, others do not support it.

The specific use case I was thinking of is an admin setting to expose the core capability.
In other words, to have a checkbox or something in the external storage app in the configuration element to allow sharing on that backend or not.

Then, in theory, when a plugin is made for an external storage mechanism, it can use the same core capability to turn off sharing if that is the capability of that backend. Meanwhile, if it is a backend that does support sharing, it can be a checkbox option.

[DeepDiver1975]

@MTRichards @karlitschek @craigpg as far as I understood we need this in the scope of OC7 - who is going to work on this?

[PVince81]

Adding @schiesbn @icewind1991 @Xenopathic to the discussion

[schiessle]

The scenario described by @DeepDiver1975 is already possible. If the external storage don't have share permissions and communicates it if we ask for the permissions we won't add the share action in OC7.

[DeepDiver1975]

Thanks @schiesbn - nice solution - I was not thinking about that approach.

@rperezb this should be sufficient for your scenario - right?

[RobinMcCorkell]

Perhaps another config option in mount.json, much like the recently pushed priority code, that controls whether a mount point can be shared or not?

I also had an idea of how to allow configuration of such options from the web interface, instead of requiring manual mount.json editing. It doesn't make sense to treat these options as mount configuration options (like host, URL, username etc) but an 'advanced' option could be a neat way of doing things. This becomes more of a design issue than the matter at hand, but it would be a useful way of getting advanced options into the web interface without having over complex configuration

[schiessle]

@Xenopathic yes, we could add a option/setting which then can be read by the storage and adjust the permissions.

I'm still not sure if I really get the use case. In which situation someone wants disable sharing for a specific mountpoint/folder?

[RobinMcCorkell]

In many organizations (mine included) there exist shared areas that are accessible to users in a group or to all users. Often these are combined with a VLE in an educational environment. In such cases it makes little sense to share items with other users that they can already access. Although to be honest, a redundant option (sharing for a shared storage) is much better than overcomplication of configuration, IMHO.

[schiessle]

If it is really accessible to all users I can see why you want to disable group/user sharing but what about public link sharing (which also includes server-to-server sharing in OC7)?

[MTRichards]

The key for me is that, in some cases someone would want to turn off sharing for external storage and let that storage handle the sharing and ACLs. For example, a windows shared directory mount. If you have permissions to see the file, it can be seen in your mount. If you don't, it can't. BUT, then one could get around that ACL by sharing it in ownCloud. In some cases that is bad.

[RobinMcCorkell]

@MTRichards there is nothing stopping the user manually copying, emailing, or otherwise sharing a file in question. The sharing API merely simplifies this. It is the user's responsibility to ensure the file they are sharing should be shared, regardless of ACLs on the external storage.

The only case that I can see where sharing might want to be disabled on an external storage is when it is redundant, for example in the case of a publicly accessible SMB share. Although it is pointless to have a Share option, it doesn't cause any actual issues, so I have to say 👎 for this functionality.

[MTRichards]

The only case that I can see where sharing might want to be disabled on an external storage is when it is redundant, for example in the case of a publicly accessible SMB share.

Exactly! So, for example, when you are connecting to Dropbox. Or Google Drive. There are others too where you would not want to be sharing it in two different places.

[PVince81]

Parent ticket: #12216

[PVince81]

Closing in favor of #19157