Rel4tion-Wiki/access/wiki-sftp.mdwn

This website has several sections. The three main ones are the wiki, the git
browser and the file browser. There are more sections, such as the CA subdomain
and the documentation browser. Each section has a different technology powering
it. The wiki is powered by [ikiwiki].

ikiwiki wikis are often managed by putting their content under version control.
This wiki is managed by a [git] repository. git is made for version control of
text, and text difference algorithms don't make sense for binary files. Managing
large/binary files under version control can quickly bring the repository to a
huge size, taking long time to clone. That is true for any version control
system, because a large file is a large file.

The wiki therefore uses another mechanism, in parallel to git, for handling any
files that aren't in plain text format. This mechanism is [[!wikipedia SFTP]].
It's meant for images (especially raster ones like PNG and JPG), audio, video,
executables, compressed files, document files that are internally compressed
(such as OpenDocument) and so on.

[[!template id=todo text="I remember I wrote somewhere else what should go into
                          ftp - find that and put here"]]

The SFTP part of the wiki works as an "underlay". It's a folder hierarchy with
the same structure as a git repository, and its content is merged with the git
repository's content. If a file with the same name exists in both, git's version
is taken (that's why it's "underlay" and not "overlay"). SFTP gives access to
the whole FTP server, but only the wiki area can be modified. Files can be
added, removed and edited.

**IMPORTANT**: Unlike with git, there is no version control of the files in
SFTP. The server does make backups, but don't rely on them. If you need to keep
many versions or have sensitive/critical content there, keep backups of it in
case something bad happens, e.g. someone else deletes it by mistake.

In addition to the whole-wiki SFTP access, each person can also have a personal
SFTP-accessible underlay which maps to their personal area under the [[/people]]
directory. This way you can manage your personal notes etc., feeling safer. But
being able to write on other people's pages and discuss ideas together is a
really cool and useful thing, so I suggest you keep your pages and text notes
in the git repository, and use SFTP just for other things, e.g. images and
audio.

This page documents only the whole-wiki SFTP access.

[ikiwiki]: http://ikiwiki.info
[git]: http://git-scm.com

# 1 :: Everything...

There's still some work to do here! Decide if the personal SFTP gets its own
page, decode if the intro should be under /access maybe, read about SFTP, learn
how to use it myself, make screenshots, list several clients...

For now, here's a quick list of the steps.

1. Generate an SSH key, if you don't have one yet.
2. Talk to [[fr33domlover]] and ask him to give you access to SFTP. If you
   already have write access to any git repository, he should already have your
   public SSH key. If not, you'll need to send him your public SSH key. Note
   that anyone can do that, gain access and vandalize the wiki. fr33domlover has
   faith in humanity, but it may still be a good idea to send the key in a GPG
   signed e-mail. If you have good intentions (and you do), it should be quick
   and easy :-)
3. Get an SFTP client program, connect to Partager's server and have fun.

If you have the OpenSSH client (which is very likely, if you already used the
`ssh` command once), you should also have the accompanying SFTP client program,
`sftp`. You need to connect as the `wikiftp` user, in the same way you connect
as the `git` user when pushing to git repositories. One simple command connects
you to the server:

	$ sftp wikiftp@partager.null

If you want to go straight to the wiki section, these work too:

	$ sftp wikiftp@partager.null:wiki
	$ sftp wikiftp@partager.null:wiki/people/joe

On the first time, you'll be asked to verify the server's fingerprint. There are
2 commons ways to do that: DNS (using SSHFP records) and PGP (using Monkeysphere
validation agent). I'm not a big expert but I'd suggest using the second one.
Anyway neither is implemented yet. You can install Monkeysphere, but the
server's key is not signed yet, so it cannot be verified this way. Until that
works, you can compare the fingerprint you got with the following one. I suggest
you do that after reloading this page in HTTPS.

	| ssh-hostkey: 1024 1e:57:72:9a:26:1f:ba:8c:cf:3e:ad:22:4d:4f:f6:9a (DSA)
	| 2048 2d:7f:e6:56:9b:fe:e1:3c:f9:93:c2:33:98:f5:00:1a (RSA)
	|_256 43:ec:87:14:30:b9:ca:9b:5e:02:f4:ca:e9:db:b4:bb (ECDSA)

Major work in the SFTP underlay should be coordinated, because there is no
version control. Use the wiki for that ;-)

# More Information

- [[!wikibooks OpenSSH/Client_Applications#The_SFTP_client]]
- <http://www.phcomp.co.uk/Tutorials/Unix-And-Linux/ssh-check-server-fingerprint.htm1>
- <https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-validate-ssh-server-identities-with-monkeysphere-on-an-ubuntu-vps>