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3.4.6. More about File Mounts

File mounts require a little more description of the concepts provided by TYPO3.

First lets discuss the relative and absolute filemounts again. In the follow example we use two filemount records which are created in the root:

These have been applied to a user or a member group for a user.

Relative

Relative filemounts are paths which are mounted relative to the directory given by $TYPO3_CONF_VARS['BE']['fileadminDir']. This value is by default set to "fileadmin/" which is also a directory found on most TYPO3 installations.

In this example the folder "fileadmin/webfolder/" is mounted for a user. "fileadmin/webfolder/" is always relative to the constant PATH_site.

If you want to make this filemount work it requires - of course - that the path "fileadmin/webfolder/" is in fact present below the PATH_site. That is not yet the case if you did the core installation from the introduction chapter of this document. So the following steps will prepare the directory for use from scratch (on a UNIX box):

  [root@T3dev coreinstall]# mkdir fileadmin/

  [root@T3dev coreinstall]# mkdir fileadmin/webfolder/

  [root@T3dev coreinstall]# chown httpd.httpd fileadmin/ -R

("mkdir" means "Make Directory", "chown" means "Change Owner". They are UNIX commands)

Notice how ownership of the created folders is changed to "httpd" which is the UNIX-user that Apache on this particular server executes PHP-scripts as.

If $TYPO3_CONF_VARS['BE']['fileadminDir'] is false, no relative filemounts are allowed.

Remember that "admin" users will have the $TYPO3_CONF_VARS['BE']['fileadminDir'] path mounted by default - all other users requires a "Filemount" record to be created and added to their user record/member groups.

Since relative filemounts are located within the document root of the website, the URL of the mounted "fileadmin/webfolder/" would be for example "http://www.my-typo3-site.org/fileadmin/webfolder/" provided that "http://www.my-typo3-site.org/" is the domain of the frontend.

Absolute

The alternative to relative filemounts - which enables people to upload files into the webspace of the site! - is absolute filemounts. These can be mounted "internally" on the server and thus manage files which are not available from a URL. The requirement for this is that $TYPO3_CONF_VARS['BE']['lockRootPath'] is set to match the first part of any absolute path being mounted.

In this case "/my_absolute_path/another_dir/" is mounted.

Before this will work we will have to configure 'lockRootPath'. In typo3conf/localconf.php, enter:

  $TYPO3_CONF_VARS['BE']['lockRootPath']='/my_absolute_path/';

Also create the directories:

      mkdir /my_absolute_path

      mkdir /my_absolute_path/another_dir/

      chown httpd.httpd /my_absolute_path/ -R

Safe mode restrictions

Notice that safe_mode and other security restrictions might prevent PHP from working on files outside the document root and thus prevent absolute filemounts from working! See the "Installing and Upgrading TYPO3" document for more details on how to run TYPO3 on safe_mode / open_basedir environments.

Home directories

TYPO3 also features the concept of "home directories". These are paths that are automatically mounted if they are present at a path configured in TYPO3_CONF_VARS. Thus they don't need to have a file mount record representing them - they just need a properly named directory to be present. Home directories are nice if you have many users which need individual storage space for their uploaded files or if you want to supply FTP-access to TYPO3 - then the safer option is to allow users FTP-access to a non-web area on the server. Then users can access those files from TYPO3.

The parent directory of user/group home directories is defined by $TYPO3_CONF_VARS['BE']['userHomePath'] and $TYPO3_CONF_VARS['BE']['groupHomePath'] respectively. In both cases the paths must be within the path prefix defined by $TYPO3_CONF_VARS['BE']['lockRootPath']! Otherwise they will not be mounted (as with any other absolute path).

Lets configure:

  $TYPO3_CONF_VARS['BE']['lockRootPath'] ='/my_absolute_path/';

  $TYPO3_CONF_VARS['BE']['userHomePath'] ='/my_absolute_path/users/';

  $TYPO3_CONF_VARS['BE']['groupHomePath']='/my_absolute_path/groups/';

Lets create:

  mkdir /my_absolute_path/users/

  mkdir /my_absolute_path/users/2/

  mkdir /my_absolute_path/users/1_admin/

  mkdir /my_absolute_path/groups

  mkdir /my_absolute_path/groups/1

  chown httpd.httpd /my_absolute_path/ -R

These lines create

The parent directory for user home dirs, /my_absolute_path/users
The parent directory for group home dirs, /my_absolute_path/groups
A home directory for the "be_group" with uid=1; /my_absolute_path/groups/1
A home directory for the "be_user" with uid=1/username="admin"; /my_absolute_path/users/1_admin/
A home directory for the "be_user" with uid=2/username=?; /my_absolute_path/users/2/

Notice how one user home dir is named "1_admin" where "1" is the user uid and "admin" is the username. When user dirs are mounted TYPO3 first looks for a directory named "[uid]_[username]", then - if not found - for a directory named "[uid]". So the username is optional and can be a help if you want to identify a users directory without having to look up his uid. However changing the username will break the link to the directory of course.

After having created these directories and configured TYPO3_CONF_VARS to set them up, the folder tree looks like this for the admin-user of the core_install:

Here are some comment to the screenshot:

"fileadmin/" is the $TYPO3_CONF_VARS['BE']['fileadminDir'] directory mounted by default for "admin" users!
This is the users private home directory in "/my_absolute_path/users/1_admin/". Only the user "admin" has access to this directory.
This is the "public" home directory that belongs to the group "guest_group" (uid=1). This is mounted because the "admin" user has been assigned membership of the "guest_group"! Other users with membership of this group will have access to this folder as well.
This is the "Filemount" placeholder record defining "fileadmin/webfolder/" as a filemount and is mounted because this filemount has been specifically added to the users record. (See the section above about relative filemounts)

(The two yellow folders named "test" are some that have been created as a test from the backend.)

If we log in as the user "guest" (uid=2) we should also see some mounted directories:

This is the user "guest"s private home directory in "/my_absolute_path/users/2/". Only the user "guest" has access to this directory.
This is the "public" home directory that belongs to the group "guest_group" (uid=1). This is mounted because the "guest" user has been assigned membership of the "guest_group"! Since the user named "admin" has access to this directory as well, they can share files here!
The user "guest" has the Filemount "My Abs Path" assigned to him which leads to that path being mounted of course (see section on absolute filemounts above).
The user "guest" has the Filemount "My Relative Path" assigned to him which mean it is mounted also!

Webspace/FTPspace

TYPO3 detects if mounted paths are reaching into the domain of the PATH_site constant. If that is the case the folder is recognized as being in the "Web-space" (yellow folder icon). If a folder is not within PATH_site it is assumed to be a folder internally on the server and thus in "FTP-space" (blue folder icon).

The significance of this is what kinds of files are allowed the in the one and in the other "space". This is determined by the variable $TYPO3_CONF_VARS['BE']['fileExtensions']:

              'webspace' => array('allow'=>'', 'deny'=>'php3,php'),

              'ftpspace' => array('allow'=>'*', 'deny'=>'')

This configuration is the default rule on file extensions allowed within each space. Basically it says that in FTP-space all files are allowed, but in Web-space "php3" and "php" is disallowed!

Having restrictions like this also means that unzipping of files and moving whole directories from FTP- to Web-space is not possible within the backend of TYPO3. This can be expressed as these rules:

In web-space you cannot unzip files
You cannot copy or move folders from ftp- to web-space.

(see the classes basicfilefunctions, extfilefunctions and tce_file.php plus the document "TYPO3 Core API")

Notice: In addition to the rules set up in $TYPO3_CONF_VARS['BE']['fileExtensions'] there is a global regex pattern which will also disqualify ANY file matching from being operated upon. That is set in $TYPO3_CONF_VARS['BE']['fileDenyPattern'].

For details about the configuration of these options please read the source comments in "t3lib/config_default.php".

Filemounts on windows servers

Currently not know if it works and what limitations it might have. Probably they have to be on the same harddisk as the main site.

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