webfuse

webfuse combines libwebsockets and libfuse. It allows ot attach a remote filesystem via websockets.

Contents

• Motivation
• Concept
• Similar Projects
• API
• Build and run
• Dependencies

Motivation

Many embedded devices, such as smart home or IoT devices are very limited regarding to their (non-volatile) memory resources. Such devices are typically comprised of an embedded linux and a small web server, providing an interface for maintenance purposes.

Some use cases, such as firmware update, require to transfer (larger) files to the device. The firmware file is often stored multiple times on the device:

1. cached by the web server, e.g. lighttpd
2. copied to locally, e.g. /tmp
3. uncompressed, also to /tmp

Techniques like SquashFS help to avoid the third step, since the upgrade file can be mounted directly. RAUC shows the use of SquashFS within an update facility.
However at least one (unecessary) copy of the upload file is needed on the device.

To avoid Steps 1 and 2, it would be great to keep the update file entirely in web server, just like NFS or WebDAV. Unfortunately, NFS is not based on any protocol, natively usable by a web application. WebDAV is based on HTTP, but it needs a server providing the update file.

webfuse solves this problem by using the WebSocket protocol. The emdedded device runs a service, known as webfuse adapter, awaiting incoming connections, e.g. from a web browser. The browser acts as a file system provider, providing the update file to the device.

Concecpt

+---------------------+  +-------------+      +------+
| Filesystem Provider |  |   webfuse   |      | user |
|  (e.g. Webbrowser)  |  |   daemon    |      |      |
+----------+----------+  +------+------+      +---+--+
           |                    |                 |
           |                  +-+-+               |
           |                  |   +--+            |
           |                  |   |  | fuse_mount |
           |                  |   +<-+            |
           |                  |   |               |
           |                  |   +--+            |
           |                  |   |  | start ws   |
           |                  |   +<-+            |
           |                  +-+-+               |
           |                    |                 |
         +-+-+     connect    +-+-+               |
         |   |--------------->|   |               |
         +-+-+                +-+-+               |
           |                    |                 |
           |                  +-+-+      ls     +-+-+
         +-+-+     readdir    |   |<------------+   |
         |   |<---------------+   |             |   |
         |   |                |   |             |   |
         |   |  readdir_resp  |   |             |   |
         |   +--------------->|   |   [., ..]   |   |
         +-+-+                |   +------------>|   |
           |                  +-+-+             +-+-+
           |                    |                 |

With webfuse it is possible to implement remote filesystems based on websockets. A reference implementation of such a daemon is provided within the examples. The picture above describes the workflow:

• The websocket filesystem daemon (webfuse daemon) mounts a filesystem on startup.
  It starts the websocket server and waits for incoming connections.

• A remote filesystem provider connects to webfuse daemon via websocket protocol.
  The example includes such a provider implemented in HTML and JavaScript.

• Whenever the user makes filesystem requests, such as ls, the request is redirected via webfuse daemon to the connected filesystem provider

Currently all requests are initiated by webfuse daemon and responded by filesystem provider. This may change in future, e.g. when authentication is supported.

Similar Projects

Davfs2

davfs2 is a Linux file system driver that allows to mount a WebDAV resource. WebDAV is an extension to HTTP/1.1 that allows remote collaborative authoring of Web resources.

Unlike webfuse, davfs2 mounts a remote filesystem locally, that is provided by a WebDAV server. In contrast, webfuse starts a server awaiting client connections to attach the remote file system.

API

Requests, responses and notifications

There are three types of messages, used for communication between webfuse daemon and filesystem provider. All message types are encoded in JSON and strongly inspired by JSON-RPC.

Request

A request is used by a sender to invoke a method on the receiver. The sender awaits a response from the receiver. Since requests and responses can be sendet or answered in any order, an id is provided in each request to identify it.

{
  "method": <method_name>,
  "params": <params>,
  "id"    : <id>
}

Item	Data type	Description
method_name	string	name of the method to invoke
params	array	method specific parameters
id	integer	id, which is repeated in response

Response

A response is used to answer a prior request. There are two kinds of responses:

Successful Results

{
   "result": <result>,
   "id": <id>
}

Item	Data type	Description
result	any	request specific result
id	integer	id, same as request

Error notifications

{
   "error": {
     "code": <code>
   },
   "id": <id>
}

Item	Data type	Description
code	integer	error code
id	integer	id, same as request

Error codes

Symbolic name	Code	Description
GOOD	0	no error
BAD	1	generic error
BAD_NOTIMPLEMENTED	2	method not implemented
BAD_TIMEOUT	3	timeout occured
BAD_BUSY	4	resource busy
BAD_FORMAT	5	invalid formt
BAD_NOENTRY	101	invalid entry
BAD_NOACCESS	102	access not allowed

Notification

Notfications are used to inform a receiver about something. Unlike requests, notifications are not answered. Therefore, an id is not supplied.

{
  "method": <method_name>,
  "params": <params>
}

Item	Data type	Description
method_name	string	name of the method to invoke
params	array	method specific parameters

Requests

lookup

Retrieve information about a filesystem entry by name.

webfuse daemon: {"method": "lookup", "params": [<parent>, <name>], "id": <id>}
fs provider: {"result": {
    "inode": <inode>,
    "mode" : <mode>,
    "type" : <type>,
    "size" : <size>,
    "atime": <atime>,
    "mtime": <mtime>,
    "ctime": <ctime>
    }, "id": <id>}

Item	Data type	Description
parent	integer	inode of parent directory (1 = root)
name	string	name of the filesystem object to look up
inode	integer	inode of the filesystem object
mode	integer	unix file mode
type	"file" or "dir"	type of filesystem object
size	integer	required for files; file size in bytes
atime	integer	optional; unix time of last access
mtime	integer	optional; unix time of last modification
ctime	intefer	optional; unix time of last metadata change

getattr

Get file attributes.

webfuse daemon: {"method": "getattr", "params": [<inode>], "id": <id>}
fs provider: {"result": {
    "mode" : <mode>,
    "type" : <type>,
    "size" : <size>,
    "atime": <atime>,
    "mtime": <mtime>,
    "ctime": <ctime>
    }, "id": <id>}

Item	Data type	Description
inode	integer	inode of the filesystem object
mode	integer	unix file mode
type	"file" or "dir"	type of filesystem object
size	integer	required for files; file size in bytes
atime	integer	optional; unix time of last access
mtime	integer	optional; unix time of last modification
ctime	intefer	optional; unix time of last metadata change

readdir

Read directory contents.
Result is an array of name-inode pairs for each entry. The generic entries "." and ".." should also be provided.

webfuse daemon: {"method": "readdir", "params": [<dir_inode>], "id": <id>}
fs provider: {"result": [
    {"name": <name>, "inode": <inode>},
    ...
    ], "id": <id>}

Item	Data type	Description
dir_inode	integer	inode of the directory to read
name	integer	name of the entry
inode	integer	inode of the entry

open

Open a file.

webfuse daemon: {"method": "readdir", "params": [<inode>, <flags>], "id": <id>}
fs provider: {"result": {"handle": <handle>}, "id": <id>}

Item	Data type	Description
inode	integer	inode of the file
flags	integer	access mode flags (see below)
handle	integer	handle of the file

Flags

Symbolic name	Code	Description
O_ACCMODE	0x003	access mode mask
O_RDONLY	0x000	open for reading only
O_WRONLY	0x001	open for writing only
O_RDWR	0x002	open for reading an writing
O_CREAT	0x040	create (a new) file
O_EXCL	0x080	open file exclusivly
O_TRUNC	0x200	open file to truncate
O_APPEND	0x400	open file to append

close

Informs filesystem provider, that a file is closed.
Since close is a notification, it cannot fail.

webfuse daemon: {"method": "close", "params": [<inode>, <handle>, <flags>], "id": <id>}

Item	Data type	Description
inode	integer	inode of the file
handle	integer	handle of the file
flags	integer	access mode flags (see open)

read

Read from an open file.

webfuse daemon: {"method": "close", "params": [<inode>, <handle>, <offset>, <length>], "id": <id>}
fs provider: {"result": {
    "data": <data>,
    "format": <format>,
    "count": <count>
    }, "id": <id>}

Item	Data type	Description
inode	integer	inode of the file
handle	integer	handle of the file
offset	integer	Offet to start read operation
length	integer	Max. number of bytes to read
data	integer	handle of the file
format	string	Encoding of data (see below)
count	integer	Actual number of bytes read

Format

Format	Description
"identiy"	Use data as is; note that JSON strings are UTF-8 encoded
"base64"	data is base64 encoded

Build and run

To install dependencies, see below.

cd webfuse
mkdir .build
cd .build
cmake ..
mkdir test
./webfused -m test --document_root=../exmaple/daemon/www --port=4711

Build options

By default, unit tests and example application are enabled. You can disable them using the following cmake options:

• WITHOUT_TESTS: disable tests
  cmake -DWITHOUT_TESTS=ON ..

• WITHOUT_EXAMPLE: disable example cmake -DWITHOUD_EXAMPLE=ON ..

Dependencies

• libfuse3
• libwebsockets
• Jansson
• GoogleTest (optional)

Installation from source

libfuse

wget -O fuse-3.1.1.tar.gz https://github.com/libfuse/libfuse/archive/fuse-3.1.1.tar.gz
tar -xf fuse-3.1.1.tar.gz
cd libfuse-fuse-3.1.1
./makeconf.sh
./configure
make
sudo make install

libwebsockets

wget -O libwebsockets-3.1.0.tar.gz https://github.com/warmcat/libwebsockets/archive/v3.1.0.tar.gz
tar -xf libwebsockets-3.1.0.tar.gz
cd libwebsockets-3.1.0
mkdir .build
cd .build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install

Jansson

wget -O libjansson-2.12.tar.gz https://github.com/akheron/jansson/archive/v2.12.tar.gz
tar -xf libjansson-2.12.tar.gz
cd jansson-2.12
mkdir .build
cd .build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install

GoogleTest

Installation of GoogleTest is optional webfuse library, but required to compile tests.

wget -O gtest-1.8.1.tar.gz https://github.com/google/googletest/archive/release-1.8.1.tar.gz
tar -xf gtest-1.8.1.tar.gz
cd googletest-release-1.8.1
mkdir .build
cd .build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install