Provided by: flickrfs_1.3.9.1-9.2ubuntu1_all bug

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)