Man Linux: Main Page and Category List

NAME

       flickrfs - virtual filesystem for flickr online photosharing service

ABOUT

       Flickrfs  is  a  virtual  filesystem which mounts on your linux machine
       like any other partition. Once mounted, it retrieves information  about
       your photos hosted on your flickr account, and shows them as files. You
       can now easily copy photos from your local machine to this  mount,  and
       it will automatically upload them to your flickr account. Similary, you
       can copy the files from your mount to your local machine, and  it  will
       download your images from flickr.

       All  the  files  in  the mount have a meta file attached to them, which
       provides access to title, description, tags, and  license  information.
       Modifying  any  of  these  fields and saving the meta file, will update
       them on the server as well.

       You can easily specify what is the default resolution  of  photos  that
       you  wish  to  upload,  and  the  fs  will  automatically  resize (read
       downsize) the photo, and upload it.

       That’s not all, the latest  verion  of  flickrfs,  provides  a  syncing
       mechanism.  This  mechanism automatically syncs any changes done online
       directly to flickr account (using flickr’s web interface or  any  other
       third  party  apps), to your mount. Thus, any addition/deletion/changes
       of sets/images is reflected back to your mount. No  stale  information!
       You just to mount it once, and it can be used forever!

USAGE

   Configuration
       The  first  time  you  run flickrfs a directory .flickrfs is created in
       your $HOME directory. The directory contains a file  named  config.txt.
       Edit the file, to set the following options:

        [configuration]
        browser:/usr/bin/x-www-browser
        image.size:1024x768
        sets.sync.int:300
        stream.sync.int:300
        add.default.tag:yes
        APIKey:f8aa9917a9ae5e44a87cae657924f42d
        Secret:3fbf7144be7eca28

       The  sync intervals are in seconds. The default interval set is 5 mins.
       The sync of /sets and /stream is irrespective of each other, so you can
       change the interval values as you like.

       image.size  field  specifies  the  default size that the photos will be
       resized to before uploading. If you wish to upload the original size of
       photos,  leave  the  value  blank as follows. Note that, only a copy of
       photo is resized, your original photo will not be resized.

       flickrfs will by default add the tag ’flickrfs’  to  all  pictures  the
       user uploads. Set add.default.tag to ’no’ to disable this feature.

       The  default  values  of API key and Secret used for authentication are
       specified in the config file. You may change them if required.

   Create a screen terminal (Optional)
       What is screen? See screen(1)

       Why? This will keep the fs mounted even when you log out. Next time you
       log  in,  you  can  directly  access the fs, without having to mount it
       again. Saves effort!

       $ screen -S flickrfs

   Mount the filesystem
       Check if fuse module has already been loaded in kernel.

       $ lsmod | grep -i fuse

       $ sudo modprobe fuse #If not loaded

        First time you are mounting the fs, you need to close all the  browser
       windows. Secondly, if you are behind a proxy server, set you http_proxy
       environment variable in the command line.

       $ export http_proxy="http://proxy.address:port"

       $ flickrfs /mountpoint

       The default web browser used is the system one. If  you  use  something
       else, you can set it in config.txt.

       Your  browser  window will open up, and require you to login, and allow
       authentication to flickrfs.  Once  you  do  that,  close  your  window.
       Flickrfs will now start downloading information. Wait a few minutes for
       your sets to populate. If you wish to view your whole stream, create  a
       directory stream in your mountpoint.

       $ mkdir /mntpoint/stream

       You are ready to GO!

   See flickrfs in action (Optional)
       If  you  wish, you can view exactly what is flickrfs doing, by checking
       out the log file present in $HOME/.flickrfs

       $ tail -f ~/.flickrfs/log

   Unmount the fs
       To unmount the filesystem, execute the following command

       $ fusermount -u /mntpoint/

Structure

   Flickrfs Home Directory $HOME/.flickrfs:
       config.txt:
              Allows you to set the default image size, and the time  interval
              for the syncing of /sets and /stream to flickr online server.

       log:   log  file  which  keeps record of activity going on in flickrfs.
              Useful for debugging purposes. In case you find a bug,  post  it
              along with this file on the mailing list.

   The filesystem mount point contains these following folders by default:
   /sets
       /sets folder contains your sets, including your private photos. You can
       easily add/delete sets using standard linux commands.

   /tags (contains /tags/personal and /tags/public)
       /tags/personal  folder  allows  search  based   upon   tags   in   your
       photostream.  Just  create  a  folder (use mkdir) whose name is a colon
       delimited tags like ’tag1:tag2:tag3’,  and  the  fs  will  search  your
       photostream  to  match all the photos which contain ALL these tags, and
       show them as files inside the directory.

       /tags/public does the same thing, but searches for public  photos  even
       outside your photostream.

   /stream (not created by default)
       /stream  folder  will  contain  ALL  the  photos  that  are present and
       accessible in your photostream. Obviously these wd also include  photos
       from your sets.

       This  folder  is  not  created by default. You need to create directory
       named ’stream’ in the root of mount point for the fs  to  populate  the
       photos. Once the folder is created, it can’t be removed.

Feature List and Usage

   Integration  with  Berkeley  DB  - Minimal hardware resource consumption by
       flickrfs
       flickrfs has been integrated with  Berkeley  DB  using  python’s  bsddb
       module.  Which  means flickrfs would now store the image information in
       Berkeley db database,  instead  of  storing  it  in  memory.  Let  come
       millions  of  images,  flickrfs  would  still  consume  only negligible
       amounts of RAM. Regarding hard disk space, it would be in order of  10s
       of Megabytes; not an issue for today’s computers.

   Performance increase
       flickrfs   retrieves  the  sets  information  in  parallel,  background
       threads. Hence, the directory structure is  created  quickly,  allowing
       users  to  start  working. If some sets couldn’t be retrieved the first
       time, they’d be taken care of when *syncing* kicks in.

       Secondly, full metadata information of images would only  be  retrieved
       when  asked  for; though they’ll always be listed in the directory. Its
       just like the way flickrfs handles images.

   Robust execution of flickr operations on small bandwidth
       Flickr operations, as in, interactions with flickr server are now fail-
       safe. flickrfs handles the URLError exceptions thrown by the operation,
       checks its result, and retries the operation multiple times in case  of
       failure.  Thus,  even if connection is lost temporarily, flickrfs would
       continue its operations unaffected.

   config file would be automatically created
       config.txt file, present in ~/.flickrfs would be created automatically,
       if  not  present.  Normally  the default values would be fine, but feel
       free to change it according to your needs.

   Bandwidth information of flickr account
       statfs system call is now tied to the bandwidth  usage  information  of
       your flickr account. You can view it by running a

       $ df -h

   Automatic periodic syncing of fs with online server.
       flickrfs  will  automatically  sync  any  changes done directly through
       flickr web interface/organizer or any other third party  apps,  to  its
       local  mount  dynamically.  This  include  changes  to  your  /sets and
       /stream. The photos present in /tags are  not  synced,  simply  because
       /tags  is  meant  just  for  searching/downloading  purposes.  The time
       interval can be specified through config.txt file. The default interval
       specified is 10 mins.

   Directly link photos from your stream or tags to sets, without downloading.
       Use your ln command to directly add a photo present in your /stream  to
       a set.

       $ ln /mntpt/stream/image.jpg /mntpt/sets/yourset/

       $ ln /mntpt/tags/personal/../image.jpg /mntpt/sets/yourset/

       OR,  if  you  wish  to  add a new set altogether, just create a new dir
       before executing link (ln). When you execute a mkdir, link  your  first
       photo  quickly,  so that the set is created online. Otherwise, the sync
       thread will delete the new directory,  seeing  it  as  incoherent  with
       online server.

       $ mkdir /mntpoint/sets/newset

   Automatic resizing of photos while uploading.
       NOTE:  This does not affect the original photo. Only a copy is resized,
       and uploaded.

       If your photo resolution is high, fs  will  automatically  downsize  (a
       copy  of  it,  not  original  photo)  to  the  resolution  specified in
       config.txt file, before uploading. This also reduces the image’s  size,
       thus  useful to people with limited 20MB upload limit. Note that if the
       image is smaller than the specified size, it would not be resized,  and
       the original size will be uploaded.

   Unicode Support
       More  robust unicode support. This feature is still in testing mode, so
       if you find any bug, feel free to contact us.

   Change photo meta data
       Title, Description, Tags, License: Use meta  data  file  associated  to
       photo.  For photo named img1_ID.jpg, the meta data file will be updated
       to the servers.

       $ vim .image1_ID.meta

       You may also use ’sed’ to do batch operations. For e.g., To change  the
       licenses  of  all  photos  from  license:0  ’All  rights  reserved’  to
       license:1 ’Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License’, execute this:

       $ sed -i -e ’s@license:0@license:1@’ .*.meta

       Permissions:  On the image that you wish to change permissions, execute
       these statements:

       $chmod 755 image_ID.jpg #to make photo public

       $chmod 774 image_ID.jpg #to make  it  available  to  only  friends  and
       family. Not to public.

       $chmod 764 image_ID.jpg #to make it available to family only

       $chmod 754 image_ID.jpg #to make it available to friends only

       $chmod 744 image_ID.jpg #to make it private

       Time:  Modification time of the image is set to its last update time on
       flickr, while creation time is set to  the  time  when  the  image  was
       uploaded to flickr.

       $ ls -l #Sort photos in asc. order according to ’last update’

       $ ls -cl #Sort photos in asc. order according to ’date uploaded’

   Uploading
       Copy  the  image  to either /sets/yourset or /stream, with the directoy
       name as follows:

       $ cp /mycamera/myimage.jpg /mntpoint/stream:tag1:tag2:tag3/

       and the photo will be uploaded with the three tags, and  an  additional
       tag ’flickrfs’. Spaces in tags are allowed.

       To create a new set, just create a directory in /sets/. The first photo
       that you copy or link to that directory will become the  primary  photo
       of  that  set. When you execute a mkdir, copy your first photo quickly,
       so that the set is created online.  Otherwise,  the  sync  thread  will
       delete the new directory, seeing it as incoherent with online server.

       $ cp /mycamera/myimage.jpg /sets/newset:tag1:tag2:tag3/

       Note  the  ’/’ at the end of the destination paths. This is required to
       differentiate b/w a filename and directory.

       Note: /tags/personal can no longer be used for  uploading  photos.  Use
       /stream for that.

   Deleting
       Flickrfs doesn’t allow/do deletion of photos. It is to prevent a ’rm *’
       accident!

       You can easily remove photos from your sets though.

       $ rm /mntpoint/sets/myset/image1_ID.jpg

       If the photo is the last photo in the set,  the  set  will  be  deleted
       automatically.

   Searching
       To  search your personal photos for tags: tag1, tag2 and tag3; create a
       directory in /tags/personal:

       $ mkdir /mntpoint/tags/personal/tags1:tags2:tags3

       To search public photos, do so in /tags/public.

       The directory will store the results as files, with a  maximum  of  500
       files.

   Downloading
       Copy  the image from the mount to your local harddisk, and the original
       size of the image will be downloaded. If original size if not  present,
       the accessible largest size of the photo will be downloaded.

       $ cp /mntpoint/../image1_ID.jpg ~/myphotos/

   Switch Account
       If you wish to switch account, just delete the folder $HOMEDIR/.flickr.
       This will remove your cache, and ask for authentication next  time  you
       mount the fs.

       $ rm -R ~/.flickr/*

Flickrfs User Guide Online

       Please visit <http://manishrjain.googlepages.com/flickrfs> to read more
       about flickrfs usage and features.

AUTHOR

       This    manual    page    was     written     by     Varun     Hiremath
       <varunhiremath@gmail.com>,  for  the Debian project (but may be used by
       others).

                               November 6, 2006                    flickrfs(1)