Calf

Calf is a simple CGI application to generate file listings cooler than your web server's. It organizes files by year and month, as it was primarily made for browsing archives.

It expects a specific hierarchy to work, that is /YYYY/MM/something/file. For instance, /2014/01/pic/lipsum.jpg.

Here's a live instance: http://files.mg0.fr/2015/09/

Installing

First, you need uriparser. That should be the only external dependency.

Now, to prepare the build:

./configure --help
./configure

Two notable features are FastCGI support (--with-fcgi) and systemd socket activation (--with-systemd). Both are detected and enabled if no options are specified.

If you expect FastCGI support, use --with-fcgi anyway.

Once it is properly configured, you're ready to build and install.

make
make install

systemd users would then grab calf.service and calf.socket in systemd/. They are configured with the proper paths.

Setting up

Check the man page, calf(8), for all the details.

You'll find below the recommended set-up with nginx and systemd. If you want to use another web server or init system, please read the man page.

Nginx

A sample configuration file is ready once you've installed calf. In order to edit it, it's better to copy it in /etc/nginx/:

cp -i /usr/share/calf/nginx.conf /etc/nginx/calf.conf

Now, open /etc/nginx/nginx.conf and add the appropriate section:

server {
	server_name files.example.com;
	listen 80;
	root /srv/calf/;
	autoindex on;
	include calf.conf;
}

The root directory is the one calf will list. Feel free to set it up anywhere you like, but ensure the http user has access to it.

systemd

As root:

systemctl enable calf.socket
systemctl start calf.socket

Note that you need to install the calf.service and calf.socket units in order for this to work.

Thumbnails

For the file /2014/01/pic/lipsum.jpg, calf expects the thumbnail to be located at /2014/01/pic/.thumbs/lipsum.jpg.jpg. Note that it needs not be a JPEG thumbnail.

You're responsible for generating thumbnails as you add new files. A cool command for this is:

convert -define jpeg:size=256x256 FILE -auto-orient \
-thumbnail 96x96^ -extent 96x96 -quality 80 ./.thumbs/FILE.jpg