gnome-user-share, which currently serves as a WebDAV service to share the user’s Public folder over the network by utilising Apache server, has been ported over from C to Rust!
The main change in dependencies is the requirement of the rustc compiler, along with cargo for rust dependency management. The project still uses the Meson build system, and still requires glib2. The glib2 Rust bindings are provided by the great folks at gtk-rs.org. A reproducible process for installing dependencies and compilation on Fedora are present in the .gitlab-ci.yaml file.
I would like to invite you to ask any questions about this port here, and file any relevant issues you run into at the gnome-user-sharegitlab project. I’m also looking to know if any non-GNU/Linux users or distributors are interested in the project and what effect this might bring to them.
An alpha will be released on the usual GNOME release schedule around 4/1/2025.
Internally, the functionality and features didn’t change. The graphical interface of managing user sharing is present in GNOME Settings, which is still the same.
It is expected for the way the port is reserved to change from a randomised number to a fixed one.
Will Apache be still required to be installed in the OS for new user share functionality? Or something like GNOME / phodav · GitLab will be used, to avoid having full Apache installed?
It is expected for the way the port is reserved to change from a randomised number to a fixed one.
Does it support multi users accounts – many users logged in at the same time in the OS, each with sharing enabled?
Is there any plan to add support for Windows service discovery? So not only Linux and MacOS clients can access shared directory (without technical knowledge).
Will Apache be still required to be installed in the OS for new user share functionality? Or something like GNOME / phodav · GitLab will be used, to avoid having full Apache installed?
Apache is used as a WebDAV server. I’ve never seen this specific project, but it looks interesting.
Does it support multi users accounts – many users logged in at the same time in the OS, each with sharing enabled?
It only supports the guest account like it did before, which could be used by multiple clients at the same time.
Is there any plan to add support for Windows service discovery? So not only Linux and MacOS clients can access shared directory (without technical knowledge).
As far as I know, vanila Windows doesn’t show other file sharing servers on the network other than SMB/CIFS in the file explorer. It also seems to be have deprecated WebDAV.
It only supports the guest account like it did before, which could be used by multiple clients at the same time.
You didn’t understand the question.
Current implementation of gnome user share is able to handle properly the case when two users are logged in on the same computer at the same time (user switching feature) and both have user file sharing enabled at the same time. Support for this case is probably reason why current implementation uses random port number rather than fixed one. How you are going to handle this case with fixed port number? Are you going, for example, to bind port number to users’ UID or somethings else to make sure many users can have file sharing enabled in gnome settings at the same time?
Hmm, haven’t though about that. Indeed having two users will open 2 different instances of Apache on two different ports. I don’t think it’s workable with a fixed port.
