elFinder NodeJS Connector

This package allows you to use elFinder file manager with Nodejs. It currently implements LocalFileStorage only. Work is being done to allow ftp, ssh and cloud storage compatibility.

Demo

https://studio-42.github.io/elFinder/

Installation

npm install elfinder-node --save

or

yarn add elfinder-node

Usage

This package should be implemented as a middleware for Express server. You can see an example of how this package is used here.

Below is a summary of how it is used:

const express = require('express');
const app = express();
const { elfinder, LocalFileStorage } = require('elfinder-node');

const roots = [
  {
    driver: LocalFileStorage,
    URL: 'https://google.com/uploads/', //Required
    path: '/path/to/dir', //Required
    permissions: { read: 1, write: 1, lock: 0 },
  },
  {
    driver: LocalFileStorage,
    URL: '/404/', //Required
    path: 'private', //Required
    permissions: { read: 1, write: 0, lock: 1 },
  },
];

app.use('/connector', elfinder(roots));

app.listen(process.env.PORT || 8000);

You can also define roots dynamically per request — useful for serving a different root directory per user:

app.use('/connector', (req, res, next) =>
  elfinder([
    {
      driver: LocalFileStorage,
      URL: `/uploads/${req.user.id}/`,
      path: `/storage/${req.user.id}`,
      permissions: { read: 1, write: 1, lock: 0 },
    },
  ])(req, res, next)
);

Note: This package is built as CommonJS and works with both require() and ES Module import statements.

Configuration

The connector takes an array of volumes. All volumes must be configured with a driver before the connector is initiated.

• driver [Required] - The volume driver to use. Use LocalFileStorage for local filesystem access, or implement a custom driver for other storage backends (S3, FTP, SSH, etc.)
• URL [Required] - The URL which will be used to resolve files
• path [Required] - The location of the folder or storage identifier
• permissions [optional] - An object containing the file permissions. The permissions will apply to everyone if you use an object as shown in the example above. You can also use a custom function which returns an object containing the permissions. This is useful for a multi-user system.

permissions: function (path) {
  if (user.canAccess(path)) {
    return { read: 1, write: 1, lock: 0 };
  } else return { read: 0, write: 0, lock: 1 };
};

Options

elfinder(roots, options) accepts an optional second argument:

• busboy [optional, default true] - The connector parses multipart uploads with its own express-busboy instance. Set this to false if your host app already runs a multipart parser ahead of this router (e.g. a global express-busboy/busboy middleware mounted on app). The raw request stream can only be read once, so running a second parser here would hang waiting on an already-drained stream — with busboy: false, the connector trusts req.body/req.files to already be populated by your own parser instead.

const express = require('express');
const busboy = require('express-busboy');
const { elfinder, LocalFileStorage } = require('elfinder-node');

const app = express();

// Host app's own global multipart parser, mounted ahead of the connector
busboy.extend(app, { upload: true });

const roots = [
  {
    driver: LocalFileStorage,
    URL: '/uploads/',
    path: '/path/to/dir',
    permissions: { read: 1, write: 1, lock: 0 },
  },
];

// busboy: false — reuse req.body/req.files already populated above instead
// of parsing the request a second time
app.use('/connector', elfinder(roots, { busboy: false }));

app.listen(process.env.PORT || 8000);

Credits

Most of the work was done by @quantv

Troubleshooting

Path Configuration

When setting up your volumes, ensure you provide correct paths for your operating system:

const roots = [
  {
    driver: LocalFileStorage,
    path: 'C:\\Users\\username\\uploads'  // Windows
    URL: '/uploads/',
    permissions: { read: 1, write: 1, lock: 0 }
  }
];

Thanks to @quantv and the community for their contributions!