Features/Transfer to many options

Basic Usage

• This feature helps share Journal/Documents/Mounted-Drives' entries across XOs, via the following two mechanisms ::

• • Peer-to-Peer mode
    • Sharing in this mode is possible, only when the server and client XO(s) are on the same networks. Thus, peer-to-peer sharing would work on
      • XOs connected to the same Access Point.
      • Adhoc-Network connections.

• • Via-School-Server mode
    • In this mode, an XO uploads an entry to the central School Server; from where the client XO(s) may download the entry.
    • This mode of sharing works as long as the School-Server is HTTP-pingable between the server and client XOs. Thus, this mode of sharing would work when
      • XOs are connected to the same Access Point (as long as school-server is pingable throughout).
      • XOs are connected to the different Access Points (as long as school-server is pingable throughout).
      • XOs are conencted to Adhoc-Network (as long as school-server is pingable throughout).

Credits

• Plan Ceibal
  • For supporting this feature development.

• Sascha Silbe silbe@activitycentral.com
  • Initial Proposal for the solution based on WebDAV.

• Anish Mangal anish@activitycentral.com
  • Showed why simply accessing the webdav shares via "Browse" activity won't work.
  • The reason is that accessing Sugar-WebDAV shares via "Browse" (or in any browser), would show only the availability of files. But a Sugar-entry is more than just the (data) file; it is a combination of
    • Metadata-file
    • Data-file
    • Preview-file (optional)
  • Also, the current workflow conforms to the sugar look-and-feel too. (Thanks again Anish).

• Ruben Rodriquez ruben@activitycentral.com
  • Feedback on the "peer-to-peer" mechanism; now when the user clicks "Access Share", the user is directly taken to the newly mounted remote-share view.

• Nitika Mangal nitika@activitycentral.com
  • Testing

NOTES

• • An entry present in "Local Shares", is available to other peers, when the peer(s) mount this XO's shares.
  • Note that the entries present in "Local Shares", have nothing to do with the entries present in "School Server Shares".
  • In the following screenshots' example, "PEER 2" mounts the shares of "PEER 1"; and uses that to copy entries onto its own XO. Thus, the entry is copied from XO-of-PEER-1 to XO-of-PEER-2.

[PEER 1] "Journal" - View.

[PEER 1] Detail view of the journal-entry. Note the preview presence.

[PEER 1] Initial "Local Shares" View

[PEER 1] Copy the journal entry to "Local Shares", to make it available for sharing to other peers.

[PEER 1] "Local Shares" view, after copying the entry.

[PEER 1] The detail view in "Local Shares". NOTE that the preview MUST be present, and it must be same as that of "Journal".

[PEER 2] Initial "Journal" - View.

[PEER 2] Neighborhood View.

[PEER 2] Click on "Access Share" of the peer, whose shares need to be accessed.

[PEER 2] The peer's shares are mounted.

[PEER 2] Copy the entry to the journal.

[PEER 2] Final "Journal" View.

[PEER 2] Detail-view of the entry. Note that the preview is the same as was on the remote peer.

NOTES

• • An entry present in "School Server Shares", is available to all the XOs. There isn't any mounting or anything required as such.
  • Note that the entries present in "School Server Shares", have nothing to do with the entries present in "Local Shares".
  • In the following screenshots' example, an XO uploads an entry to the school-server, and then downloads the same. HOWEVER, NOTE THAT ANY XO WOULD BE ABLE TO DOWNLOAD THE ENTRY PRESENT ON THE SCHOOL-SERVER, AND NOT ONLY NECESSARILY THE UPLOADER.

[UPLOAD] Initially, no entries are present on the school-server.

[UPLOAD] Choose an entry to upload to the school-server.

[UPLOAD] Enter the pasphrase when prompted.

[UPLOAD] After uploading, ensure that the entry has in fact been uploaded to the school-server.

[DOWNLOAD] Initial "Documents" view.

[DOWNLOAD] Choose to copy the entry from school-server, to "Documents".

[DOWNLOAD] Enter (incorrect) password.

[DOWNLOAD] 'Passphrase not match' error occurs.

[DOWNLOAD] Try copying again.

[DOWNLOAD] Enter (correct) password.

[DOWNLOAD] Confirm that the entry has been successfully downloaded.

[DOWNLOAD] Ensure that in the detail view, the uploader-details are present.

HOW TO SETUP

• PEER-TO-PEER MODE
  • Setting up the XOs
    • Install the image <add image link> on the XO-1.75s.
  • All done (For example workflow screenshots, please refer http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Features/Transfer_to_many_options#Example_Workflow_for_Peer-To-Peer_Mode)

• VIA-SCHOOL-SERVER
  • Setting up School-Server (on Fedora-17/Fedora-14)
    • Download the file http://people.sugarlabs.org/ajay/root/1-to-N-via-SS/1-to-N-local-server-setup-script.sh on the server machine.
    • Run the following command
      • sudo sh /path/to/1-to-N-local-server-setup-script.sh
    • Now, open a browser, type https://127.0.0.1/webdav in the URLBar, accept the certificate (only first time required). You should see a webdav listing of an empty directory.
    • Next, download the file http://people.sugarlabs.org/ajay/root/1-to-N-via-SS/1-to-N-server-script.py on the server machine.
    • Run the command
      • crontab -e
    • In the opened vim instance, append the following line, and save-exit.
      • 00 * * * * /usr/bin/python /path/to/1-to-N-server-script.py
    • The utility of the "1-to-N-server-script.py" is described in the script file itself.
    • Reboot.
    • The server should be ready to go.
  • Setting up the XOs
    • Install the image <add image link> on the XO-1.75s (if not already).
    • On each XO, configure the IP-Address/DNS-Name of the School-Server. For example, if the IP-address of the school-server is 192.168.1.26, run the following command (in Terminal Activity) of each XO ::
      • gconftool-2 --set /desktop/sugar/network/school_server_ip_address_or_dns_name --type string 192.168.1.26
    • Reboot (each XO).
  • All done (For example workflow screenshots, please refer http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Features/Transfer_to_many_options#Example_Workflow_for_Via-School-Server_Mode)

TEST-CASES THAT NEED TO PASS

• Inter-copying an entry between Journal/Documents/Mounted-Drives/Local-Shares/School-Server-Shares should behave in the same way. For eg, in the peer-to-peer mode, it was shown that the source-entry (on PEER-1) had a preview; the same was true when the entry finally arrived on PEER-2. In particular, the preview should "go along" as and when the entry goes, intra-XO or inter-XO.

• Things should work fine, irrespective of the fact that whether the sharing is done via single-mode, or batch-mode.