You
could count only a handful of tasks where a home server can be really
useful, almost all are about making digital media more available.
After installing
the DLNA server on the Raspberry PI I was still looking for a
software tool to easily browse the pictures I keep on my network NAS.
I so installed
the LAMP server components and I've been trying several PHP based
gallery web-applications like Gallery
3 or Piwigo. They are all
valuable tools but unfortunately didn't fit with my requirements
because couldn't hook to preexisting picture folders or didn't
perform well on the not-so-powerful Raspberry PI . On the
other hand these applications offers a wide set of features, like
users management, I don't need since my gallery isn't going anywhere
outside my home LAN.
SFPG:
(zero configuration) Single File PHP Gallery
Single
File PHP Gallery (SFPG) is a simple gallery web application all
contained into a single PHP script. It might sound odd from a purely
programming point of view but It greatly simplifies application
deployment. In addition to its being single-file SFPG doesn't need
MySQL or any other database, since it stores all information it needs
on files. Last but not least, under the proper conditions, SFPG can
work without any configuration by just placing it on the pictures
root folder.
Some
bare-bone configuration
Even
if SFPG can be deployed without the need of configuration it offers a
wide range of configuration by editing the “define”
instructions listed at the beginning of the (unique) “index.php”
file. I changed the gallery root path to point to my NAS pictures
folder in order to separate actual pictures folder from SFPG data
folder:
…define('GALLERY_ROOT', '/media/public/Pictures/');define('DATA_ROOT', './_sfpg_data/');define('SECURITY_PHRASE', 'some phrase to be used as random seed');…
I
also set a security phrase that SFPG uses as seed in generating
random paths. SFPG can also automatically set the security phrase if
the PHP script has permission to modify itself.
