this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2025
46 points (100.0% liked)

Selfhosted

49282 readers
704 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

  1. Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam posting.

  3. Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).

  6. No trolling.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Like how on Debian's website, you can find their ISO's and other related files in this very simple file browser layout which looks kind of old but I want that, know any projects or way to set something like that up? The modern self-hosted stuff just does not seem simple enough, and both aesthetically and from a functional perspective I would like something like what debain does with their own files. I also want it to be reliable, for some reason, with both immich and nextcloud, a relative of mine was unable to download alot of photos without the download not even starting on Nextcloud, or it stopping 30% of the way on immich, if reliable downloads necessitate a desktop app with their own unique file exchanging protocol I would be ok with that too (willing to compromise with the desired aesthetic and minimalist design)

The ideal thing is the thing here: https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/

top 22 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Nephele with SERVE_LISTINGS turned on and a read only mount.

It shows listings in the browser, just like Apache, but can also be accessed with a file browser, because it’s a WebDAV server.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I use Caddy for all kind of things and it has a very simple file browser built in that can be activated super easily: https://caddyserver.com/docs/quick-starts/static-files

Looks like shown here: https://peterpf.dev/posts/caddy-simple-fileserver/

[–] [email protected] 2 points 18 hours ago

I did not know Caddy could do that. TIL

Thanks

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago

python3 -m http.server

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 day ago (2 children)

You can use basically any HTTP server to achieve that, like Apache or Nginx. If the directory (specified by the path in the URL) doesn't contain a file that matches the default file in the config (index.html and such), the server will list the directory contents instead.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago

I guess in order for this to work you need to have set up that directory with the routing configuration? I’ve only ever gotten 404

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 hours ago

The "not my problem lol you figure it out" mode

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Those are directory listings. They are the default in apache2 (maybe others as well... I only know apache2), unless disabled or disallowed in the configs (enabled and allowed by default). If the directory you're accessing such as http://192.168.123.123/somedir/ does not contain a default file, such as an index.html, the directory list will be served instead.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 18 hours ago

I think https://github.com/sigoden/dufs is exactly what you want.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

An...interesting...collection of stuff.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 17 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Like others said, if you just want to let people download files from your server, use a directory listing.

For my self-hosting though, I use FileBrowser and it's very simple but still works well.

https://filebrowser.org/

https://github.com/filebrowser/filebrowser

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

And make sure to not be listed on r/openDirectories without intending it ;)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 21 hours ago

Cockpit has a file browser.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Most Webbrowser Support ftp. So if you setup an ftp server you can access it by typing ftp://[server] as the URL, if you want to do it remote I am legally required to recommend you using ftps

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

Most Webbrowser Support ftp.

None of the popular web browsers support FTP. Maybe some niche browsers still do, but certainly not "most".

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Not anymore.
Chrome removed ftp access.
I believe Firefox followed as well.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 23 hours ago

I use yazi via ssh(it beats most file browsers even the gui once with photo preview and such) and before that i was browsing through the casa OS file manager. Casa was my second entry to self hosting

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Read-only, or the ability to edit filenames & upload files?

Read only: as per other answers here, basically any HTTP server. The easiest one I know would be darkhttpd, because it requires no config files and can be run without root.

Read write: I like WFM https://github.com/tenox7/wfm

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Have you thought of using an ftp server? That dir tree view used to be the default.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 15 hours ago

Don't recommend using FTP. It's a shitty old protocol that needs to die. Just use nginx or apache with directory listing enabled.