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Summary

ELF allows users to Exchange Large Files using a standard web browser such as Internet Explorer or Netscape. It was designed to ween users from ftp by allowing users to communicate through email. Users can exchange files up to 2 GB and a registered user can request a temporary account for non-registered users for quick access.

Features

Upload Files

An ELF user can upload up to 3 files at once(2 GB maximum combined size) to an ELF server and specify up to 5 recipients who can download the files. Only a standard Web Browser and email client are needed.

ELF sends an email to the recipients with a link to download the files uploaded by the requester. The recipients can simply click on the link to download the file through a web browser from the ELF Server.

Request Temporary Accounts

An ELF user can request a temporary account for users who are not registered with ELF. The temporary user receives an email with a username and password and can login to the ELF system for a limited time(default of 5 days).

The temporary user can only upload files to the ELF user who requested their account.

Configurable

The ELF system is very configurable and allows you to change many parameters easily.

We hope to add an updated version of ELF soon.

Requirements

  • MySQL
  • Apache with Mod PHP and Mod SSL(optional)
  • Unix OS
  • Perl with DBI/DBD - Perl Module

  • Upload - In order to upload up to 2 GB files some modification may be necessary.

    By default ELF allows you to upload up to 3 files at once, however the combined size of all the uploads must be under 2 GB. Apparently, 2 GB is an http limit and/or file system limit and is probably a pain to work around. To allow 2 GB you will have to modify the php.ini(a configuration file for mod php) and change the following:

    • max_execution_time = 120
    • post_max_size = 2047M
    • upload_max_filesize = 2047M
    • upload_tmp_dir = "/mypartition/tmp"

    As you can see we are 1 MB shy of 2 GB but putting 2048 would not work correctly for some reason.

    PHP performs file uploads by first writing the files to a temporary directory which is located in the php.ini file under the directive upload_tmp_dir. If there are multiple files being uploaded in an html form, then each file is uploaded sequentially until the last file is done.

    After all files are uploaded successfuly then your php script is able to execute and the files can be moved from the temporary directory to a directory you specify. There was an issue with the max_execution_time variable in the php.ini file not being large enough because when moving large files the script would timeout with the error message: PHP Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded.

    So, we increased the max_execution_time to 120 seconds which should hopefully resolve this issue. This time may vary depending on disk speed etc. If a user complains that his browser goes blank when uploading files then check the Apache error log files and look for execution time out errors.



    ELF allows users to Exchange Large Files using a standard web browser such as Internet Explorer or Netscape.
    Copyright © 2002,2003 The Rockefeller University, All Rights Reserved