Novell Filr 1.1 Deployment Quick Start

September 2014

Novell Filr is an enterprise file management tool designed to share files by leveraging your security infrastructure, both internally as well as externally. Filr gives you access to corporate files (including files that are located on mapped drives) and lets you access them from a mobile app on a mobile device, from a desktop application on your workstation, or from a Web browser.

The purpose of this quick start is to direct your attention to important procedures that are vital to setting up a functioning Filr system. For complete information about installing and administering Filr, see the Novell Filr 1.1 Installation and Configuration Guide and the Novell Filr 1.1 Administration Guide. For a hands-on evaluation experience, see the Filr 1.1 Hands-on Guide for Windows, or the Hands-on Quick Start for Windows.

1.0 Installing Filr and Performing Initial Configuration

Become familiar with the information in the following guides before you begin the Filr installation:
- Novell Filr 1.1 Planning and Deployment Best Practices Guide
- How Filr Works–Overview Guide
Install the Filr software, as described in Creating a Small Deployment or Creating a Large Deployment in the Novell Filr 1.1 Installation and Configuration Guide.

IMPORTANT:For a production environment, you should install Filr as a large deployment.
Configure Filr, as described in Configuring a Small Deployment for the First Time or Configuring a Large Deployment for the First Time in the Novell Filr 1.1 Installation and Configuration Guide.
Continue with Setting Up the Filr Site.

2.0 Setting Up the Filr Site

Filr ships with most settings disabled by default, so you must enable each piece of functionality. This ensures that your data is not unknowingly exposed to users who do not usually have access to certain information. For example, users cannot share files until you give them the ability to do so.

Some pieces of functionality, such as configuring Net Folders, must be enabled in the correct way in order to avoid unintended issues.

Complete the following steps to make your Filr site ready and available for users:

Add a valid license for each Filr appliance in your system. For more information, see Viewing and Updating the Filr License in the Novell Filr 1.1 Administration Guide.
Change any appliance-specific configuration settings, such as network settings, email configuration, and so forth.

Appliance-specific configuration settings require that the Filr appliance be restarted in order for the configuration setting to take effect. Therefore, it is best to make any changes now, before you make your Filr site available to users.

For information about the settings you can change and how to change them, see Changing Appliance Configuration Options in the Novell Filr 1.1 Administration Guide.
Add users and groups to your Filr site, either through an LDAP synchronization process or by manually creating users.

If the search context of your LDAP synchronization contains an OES or Windows server that has a Home folder attribute associated with at least one user, a Net Folder Server is ready to be configured immediately after running the LDAP synchronization process. You need to consider the amount of data in users’ Home folder directories when performing an LDAP synchronization. For information about the amount of time it takes to perform a full synchronization on a Net Folder, see Planning the Amount of Data to Synchronize in the Novell Filr 1.1 Administration Guide.

For more information about LDAP synchronization, see Synchronizing Users and Groups from an LDAP Directory or Creating a New Local User in the Novell Filr 1.1 Administration Guide.
Configure email integration for the Filr site, as described in Configuring Email Integration in the Novell Filr 1.1 Administration Guide.
Set up sharing for the Filr site. You can enable users to share files and folders with internal users only, or with both internal and external users.

For more information about allowing users to share documents within Filr, see Setting Up Sharing in the Novell Filr 1.1 Administration Guide.
Enable personal storage for the Filr site. This allows users to upload files directly to the Filr site for their own personal use. These files are available in users’ My Files area.

For more information about personal storage, as well as how personal storage relates to users’ Home folders, see Setting Up Personal Storage in the Novell Filr 1.1 Administration Guide.
Configure Net Folders for your Filr site. Net Folders in Filr provide access to files on your corporate OES, Windows, or NetWare file servers by synchronizing file metadata. In essence, a Net Folder is simply a pointer or a reference to a specific folder on a specific file server.

Filr can be configured to index the content of Net Folders to make the content searchable.

For more information about Net Folders, see Setting Up Net Folders the Novell Filr 1.1 Administration Guide.

IMPORTANT:Configuring Net Folders in a sub-optimal way can result in unsatisfactory performance of your Filr system. The ideal Net Folder configuration can vary greatly depending on the number of files that you want to synchronize to Filr, the frequency in which files are modified, and so forth. Before configuring Net Folders, become familiar with the various subtleties related to Net Folders, as described in Planning Net Folder Creation the Novell Filr 1.1 Administration Guide.
(Optional) Allow access to the Filr site through NetIQ Access Manager.

For more information about using NetIQ Access Manager with Filr, see Allowing Access to the Filr Site through NetIQ Access Manager in the Novell Filr 1.1 Administration Guide.
IMPORTANT:When you use NetIQ Access Manager with Filr, external users cannot access your Filr site. This means that the following features are not functional:
- Users are not able to share with external users, as described in Sharing with People Outside Your Organization in the Novell Filr 1.1 Web Application User Guide.
- Users cannot make items accessible to the public, as described in Making Files Accessible to the Public in the Novell Filr 1.1 Web Application User Guide.
  
  This means that public users cannot access the Filr site as the Guest user. For more information about the Guest user, see Allowing Guest Access to Your Filr Site in the Novell Filr 1.1 Administration Guide.
For more information about external users in Filr, see Allowing External Users Access to Your Filr Site in the Novell Filr 1.1 Administration Guide.
Configure mobile device access to the Filr site, as described in Configuring Mobile Device Access to the Filr Site in the Novell Filr 1.1 Administration Guide.
Configure the Filr desktop application to access files from the Filr site.

For more information about configuring the Filr desktop application, see Configuring the Filr Desktop Application to Access Files in the Novell Filr 1.1 Administration Guide.
IMPORTANT:For optimal performance of the Filr system when using the Filr desktop application, consider the following:
- Users should not configure the Filr desktop application to synchronize more than 1,000 total files, or to synchronize individual files that are larger than 1 GB to their workstations. For information about how users can configure the Filr desktop application to synchronize files to their workstations, see the Novell Filr 1.0 Desktop Application for Windows Quick Start and the Novell Filr 1.0 Desktop Application for Mac Quick Start.
- Depending on your environment and the settings that you choose for the Filr desktop application, the Filr desktop application can put a significant load on your Filr system. For information about the factors that affect load, see Planning Filr Desktop Application Usage for Your Filr Site in the Novell Filr 1.1 Administration Guide.
Configure Filr to support WebDAV on a Windows 7 environment, as described in Configuring Filr to Support WebDAV on Windows 7 in the Novell Filr 1.1 Administration Guide.
If your Filr site needs to support multiple languages, configure the site as described in Managing a Multiple-Language Filr Site in the Novell Filr 1.1 Administration Guide.
Before your site is ready for use, ensure that you have reviewed all other topics discussed in Setting Up the Filr Site before Users Log In in the Novell Filr 1.1 Administration Guide.
After you have completed all of the topics that are relevant to your Filr environment, as discussed in the Novell Filr 1.1 Administration Guide, you can invite users to use the Filr site. For information about how to use the Filr site, see Novell Filr 1.1 Web Application User Guide.

3.0 Legal Notices

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