Novell Filr allows you to easily access all your files and folders from your desktop, browser, or a mobile device. In addition, you can promote collaboration around your files by sharing files and folders with others. For a detailed overview of Filr, see the Novell Filr 1 “How Filr Works”–Overview Guide.
You can access Filr in the following ways:
From a Web browser on your workstation, as described in the Filr Web Application User Guide
From a mobile device, as described in the Filr Mobile App Quick Start
From your desktop, as described in the Filr Desktop for Windows Quick Start and the Filr Desktop for Mac Quick Start
Novell Filr 1.0 system requirements (including server requirements as well as requirements to run the mobile app and the desktop application) are listed in Filr System Requirements
in the Novell Filr 1.0 Installation and Configuration Guide.
Complete installation instructions are available in the Novell Filr 1.0 Installation and Configuration Guide.
You must reconfigure the Filr appliance before updating to a future version. If you do not reconfigure the appliance before updating, the update fails.
For information about how to reconfigure the Filr appliance, see Changing Configuration Options for the Filr Appliance
in the Novell Filr 1.0 Installation and Configuration Guide.
When performing an LDAP synchronization with the default LDAP filter, and when Domain Services for Windows (DSfW) is also being used, Filr synchronizes DSfW workstation objects in addition to the intended user and group objects.
To fix this problem so that DSfW workstation objects are not synchronized, modify the Filr LDAP filter as follows:
(&(|(objectClass=Person)(objectClass=orgPerson)(objectClass=inetOrgPerson))(!(objectClass=mSDS:Computer)))
For more information about LDAP configuration in Filr, see Synchronizing Users and Groups from an LDAP Directory
in the Novell Filr 1.0 Administration Guide.
When configuring a large installation, you must use the DNS name when configuring the Lucene search index server in the Filr configuration wizard. Using an IP address during this configuration results in no connectivity unless there is a corresponding DNS entry.
If you want to use an IP address and there is no corresponding DNS entry, you must modify the etc\hosts file on the Filr server.
LDAP user names must contain only numerical values 0 - 9 and upper-case and lower-case letters (A-Z). User names that contain special characters (for example, / \ * ? " < > : | ) cannot be used as Novell Filr user names. If your LDAP directory includes user names with these characters, they synchronize to the Filr site, but the associated users cannot log in.
These characters cannot be used in a Filr user name because a Filr user name becomes the user’s workspace title, and the workspace title becomes an element of the hierarchical path that leads to the workspace. These characters are not legal characters in Linux and Windows pathnames.
User names and passwords that are synchronized from an LDAP directory are case-insensitive when users log in to the Filr system.
Local user accounts (user accounts that are created in Filr and not synchronized from an LDAP directory) are case-sensitive. Login credentials for local user accounts are stored in the MySQL database.
Applets are not supported on 64-bit Firefox on a system with a Java Runtime Environment (JRE) earlier than 1.6.0_12.
On a 64-bit operating system, updating to JRE 1.6.0.12 or later enables the applets to work.
For example, multi-file drag-and-drop from the desktop, file paste from the desktop, Edit-in-Place, and the graphical display in the workflow editor do not work where applets are not supported.
NFS file system mounts are supported for placing the Filr file repository on a remote server from where Filr is running. However, NFS file system mounts are not supported for placing the Lucene index on a remote server from where the Lucene Index Server is running. This includes NFS mounts under the hypervisor.
To successfully use Novell Filr with NetIQ Access Manager, Access Manager 3.1 SP1 IR1 or later is required. The latest version is available on the Novell Downloads Web site.
When NetIQ Access Manager is configured to front Filr, if users access Filr directly by using the Filr IP address, Access Manager displays a basic authentication login dialog box. This login dialog box contains a reference to Vibe. Instead, this should say Filr.
When NetIQ Access Manager is configured to front Filr, you cannot use multiple identity injection policies simultaneously.
Only one DNS server is shown in the network configuration for the Novell appliance. When you specify multiple DNS servers during the appliance installation, the DNS servers are set correctly, but only one is displayed.
For information about how to display network information for the Novell appliance, see Changing Network Settings
in the Novell Filr 1.0 Installation and Configuration Guide.
Section 6.1, Email Report Is Missing Items from the Last Day of the Report
Section 6.2, My Files Storage Directory Is Displayed in Search
Section 6.10, Cannot Drag and Drop Files into a Folder When Using Safari on Windows
Section 6.11, Filename Should Not Be More Than about 200 Characters
Section 6.14, Ganglia Monitoring Stops Working Due to Time Zone Issue When NTP Is Running
Section 6.15, Cannot Log in to Web Client When Password Is Longer Than 79 Characters
Section 6.17, Time Stamps for Catalina.out Log File Are Always in UTC Time Zone
When running an Email report (as described in Email Report
in the Novell Filr 1.0 Administration Guide), emails are not displayed for the last day of your report date range.
For example, if you are running an email report between February 3 and April 26, the email report does not show emails from April 26.
When Personal Storage is disabled and Home folders have not been configured, users can find a directory called My Files Storage when clicking in the global Search field and pressing the Spacebar. This is normally a hidden directory, but can it be displayed under these special circumstances.
When you click , it can take you to either your My Files area or to the profile of another user (depending on where you are when you do the search).
If you allow external user access to the Filr site (as described in Allowing External Users Access to Your Filr Site
), external users see the OpenID (Google or Yahoo) button on the Filr login page regardless of whether the Filr administrator has enabled the option to (as described in Allowing Users to Access the Filr Site with Google and Yahoo Accounts (OpenID)
).
If the option is disabled, the Google or Yahoo button is displayed on the login page. However, when users click the button, the login fails. If the option is enabled, the login is successful.
If you try to share a file or folder with a group whose membership includes an external user, an error occurs and the file or folder is not shared with the group.
After editing an .rtf file from Filr in a text editor (such as Microsoft Word), saving the file results in a message indicating that the file has been changed by another author. In this case, select the option to combine your changes with the other author’s changes, then click .
Changes that you make to the file are saved to Filr as expected.
For more information about editing files in Filr using Edit-in-Place functionality, see Editing Files with Edit-in-Place
in the Novell Filr 1.0 Web Application User Guide.
Section 6.5.2, Issues with Initial Synchronization of Filr Users
Section 6.5.3, Hardcoded LDAP Limitation with Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2008
Section 6.5.5, Issues with Renaming and Moving Users in Your LDAP Directory
Section 6.5.8, Active Directory Cross Forest Trust Relationship Is Not Supported
Novell recommends that you never select the option when configuring your LDAP synchronization. This feature will either be enhanced or removed in future Filr releases. User accounts that are deleted cannot be recovered. As a best practice, leave this LDAP option unchecked. Doing so disables users rather than deleting them.
The LDAP value of the attribute you specify for the LDAP configuration setting must be unique throughout your LDAP directory. For example, if you specify cn, all users in the LDAP directory might not have a unique value.
To resolve this issue, use an attribute whose value is always unique across all containers, such as emailAddress.
Hardcoded LDAP limitations that exist with Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2008 can result in LDAP returning less information for a single LDAP query. The limitations are:
Maximum number of users that can be synchronized: 20,000 (the default limitation is 5,000)
To work around this issue, set up an LDAP connection for each subcontainer (by clicking from the LDAP configuration page in Filr) and run each LDAP connection in sequence.
For more information about this issue, see Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows Server 2008 domain controller returns only 5000 attributes in a LDAP response
in the Microsoft Support Forum.
Membership of groups that are located in the Default Users OU (such as the Domain Users group) in Active Directory are not synchronized to Filr through LDAP.
In order to rename or move users in your LDAP directory, ensure that you have specified a value for the setting , as described in LDAP Attribute to Identify a User or Group
in Managing Users
in the Novell Filr 1.0 Administration Guide. If a value is not specified for this setting, renaming or moving users in your LDAP directory might result in new users being created in Filr or in the existing user account being deleted.
After users are renamed in the LDAP directory, users must use their old user names when logging in to the Filr mobile app or the Filr desktop application.
Users can use their old or new user names when logging in to Filr from the Web client.
Novell Filr does not currently support the use of LDAP referrals in regards to LDAP synchronization.
Cross Forest Trust relationships in Active Directory are not supported in Filr.
Files that have been password-protected in the application where they were created cannot be viewed on the Novell Filr site. This is working as designed.
Because of database restrictions, the maximum number of nested folders that Filr allows is 45. For example, you can create a folder within a folder, then create a folder within that folder, and so forth, until the folder structure is 45 levels deep. You cannot exceed 45 levels in the folder structure.
The License Report currently counts Administrator, Guest, and three internal users (_emailPostingAgent, _jobProcessingAgent, and _synchronizationAgent) as local users. The Administrator counts as an active user, but the other four local users do not count against your Filr license usage.
For information about how to generate a license report, see License Report
in the Novell Filr 1.0 Administration Guide.
If you cannot get your Filr site to communicate with an external outbound mail system (such as Novell GroupWise), you might need to configure the Filr outbound email server with TLS over SMTP. If your email application requires this type of configuration, you can configure Filr with TLS over SMTP by using STARTTLS, as described in Configuring Outbound Email with TLS over SMTP
in Managing Email Configuration
in the Novell Filr 1.0 Administration Guide.
When configuring Filr to use an external outbound mail system (such as Novell GroupWise), the button fails when no user name and password is specified, even when the option is not selected.
For information about how to configure Filr to use an external outbound mail system, see Changing Outbound Email Configuration Settings
in the Novell Filr 1.0 Installation and Configuration Guide.
You cannot drag and drop files into a folder (as described in Adding Files to a Folder
in the Novell Filr 1.0 Web Application User Guide) when using Safari on Windows.
This is because the drag-and-drop window for adding files to folders in Filr uses HTML 5 functionality, which is not currently supported with Safari on Windows.
The exact maximum filename length depends on the configuration of the Filr server, but generally it is not less than about 200 characters. If filenames are too long, files cannot be added to Filr.
If you try to edit a file through WebDAV (as described in Editing Files with Edit-in-Place
in the Novell Filr 1.0 Web Application User Guide) when your user password contains a space, the authentication fails.
To edit files through WebDAV, ensure that your user password does not contain a space.
If you are accessing Filr from a Mac and using LibreOffice as your document editor, you cannot edit files through WebDAV using Edit-in-Place functionality (as described in Editing Files with Edit-in-Place
in the Novell Filr 1.0 Web Application User Guide).
If you are using Apache to front the Filr system, users are able to edit files through WebDAV when accessing Filr from a Mac and using LibreOffice as the document editor.
IMPORTANT:Install this update only on Windows Vista and Windows XP. Do not install this update on Windows 7.
In order to use the Novell Filr Edit-in-Place feature in your browser on Windows Vista and Windows XP, you must install the following Windows WebDAV update:
Software Update for Web Folders (KB907306).
This Windows update enables OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office to interact correctly with the Filr Edit-in-Place feature.
Microsoft Windows Vista has some issues with WebDAV access that affect all WebDAV interactions. In addition, a Vista-specific issue with applets can prevent the Novell Filr Edit-in-Place feature from working properly. Be sure you are running the latest version of Vista. Be sure you have installed the Windows WebDAV update described in Section 6.12.3, Windows Update for WebDAV Functionality for Windows Vista and Windows XP.
Windows Vista users who are using Internet Explorer might see a Java warning when they try to use Edit-in-Place. (Firefox users do not see this error.)
To configure Internet Explorer to support the Filr Edit-in-Place feature:
In Internet Explorer, click .
Click , select , then click .
In the field, specify the URL of your Filr server, then click .
Select or deselect , as appropriate for your Filr server.
Click , then click to save the security settings.
To configure Windows Vista to support the Filr Edit-in-Place feature in Microsoft Office, you must add new keys to the Windows registry for each Microsoft Office application.
In Windows Explorer, navigate to Program Files/Microsoft Office/Office12.
Scroll down to each Microsoft Office .exe in turn:
excel.exe powerpnt.exe winword.exe ...
Right-click each executable, then click .
Click .
Select , then select from the drop-down list.
Reboot the computer.
You should now be able to use the Filr Edit-in-Place feature with Microsoft Office files.
NOTE:Although these steps enable Edit-in-Place for Filr, they do not fix Vista’s inability to attach via WebDAV in Filr.
For additional information on applets, view the following Sun bulletins:
When you use WebDAV functionality in a Mac environment, you encounter the following limitation:
Edit-in-Place functionality is not supported on a Mac when you use Microsoft Office as your document editor. To use Edit-in-Place functionality on a Mac, you must use OpenOffice or LibreOffice as your document editor.
On Windows XP, when you view a Filr folder through Windows Explorer, an additional sub-folder with the same name as the parent folder might be displayed.
To resolve this problem:
Launch a Web browser.
Navigate to the Microsoft Download Center and install the Software Update for Web Folders (KB907306) http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=17C36612-632E-4C04-9382-987622ED1D64&displaylang=en
Follow the on-screen instructions to install the software update.
When NTP is running on the same server as the Ganglia monitoring tool, Ganglia can stop working. This occurs when the time on the system unknowingly gets moved backwards (probably due to an issue with NTP).
To resolve this problem, do one of the following:
Wait for the system time to surpass the original system time.
Delete the database files from the following directory: /vastorage/ganglia/rrds/*, then restart the following services:
Filr (You can restart Filr as described in Changing Configuration Options for the Filr Appliance
in the Novell Filr 1.0 Installation and Configuration Guide, or you can use the following command: rcfilr restart)
novell-gmond (Use the following command: rcnovell-gmond restart)
novell-gmetad (Use the following command: rcnovell-gmetad restart)
Users cannot log in to the Filr Web client if the password length exceeds 79 characters.
Scroll bars that serve no purpose are displayed in certain folders and collection views when viewing Filr in Safari and when the Open in Internet Explorer 1.0 extension is installed. (This extension is installed with Parallel’s Desktop software.)
To display Filr correctly, use a different browser or uninstall the Open in Internet Explorer 1.0 extension.
When the Ask toolbar is installed on a Chrome browser, it inhibits users from being able to view all of the Filr masthead. The Ask toolbar is not a Chrome-sanctioned toolbar and should not be installed on a Chrome browser.
Time stamps for entries in the catalina.out log file are always in the UTC/GMT time zone.
The time of the Filr system clock is displayed incorrectly for a brief period of time after the Filr appliance is restarted and until another time synchronization in the Filr appliance occurs.
During this period of time, various issues can arise in your Filr site related to functionality that depends on correct time zone settings.
To force a time synchronization to occur in the Filr appliance and resolve this issue, specify the following command from the terminal prompt of the Filr appliance:
sntp -P no -r pool.ntp.org (or your preferred time server that is available to your network)
Section 7.1, Group Access Rights from Built-In Active Directory Groups Are Not Synchronized
Section 7.5, Users Cannot See Net Folder When No Trustees Are Assigned to the Volume
Section 7.6, Cannot Connect to an OES Server If There Is No eDirectory Replica on the OES Server
Section 7.7, Moving or Renaming a File from the File Server Removes Shares
Users who have access to a file or folder on a Windows file server only through their membership in a built-in Active Directory group do not have access to the file or folder in Filr.
These users must be granted access to the files and folders individually or through a group other than a built-in group.
There are many ways to configure Windows file servers to support user Home folders. In general, folder sharing from Filr for Active Directory users works successfully. However, if NTFS permissions on a Windows file system are not set up in a way that is compatible with Filr, when Active Directory users share a folder from their Home folder with another user, files in the shared folder might not be visible.
To ensure that files within a folder (in an Active Directory user’s Home folder) are shared when a folder is shared, ensure that inheritance is disabled for each user’s Home directory. You must also explicitly grant rights for subfolders in the Home directory.
In addition, Filr supports Microsoft’s Access Based Enumeration (ABE), which is available on Windows Server 2003 through Windows Server 2012. Home folder shares work properly when the Windows file system is set up using ABE.
If the OES file server is online and Filr can communicate to that server through NCP or CIFS, Filr might retrieve incorrect information from that server if it has internal or system errors (such as NDSD being down). If Net Folders do not appear to have the correct contents in Filr, check the health of the file server and ensure that it is configured and running as expected.
DFS junctions on Windows and OES are not currently supported in Filr. Support for this feature will be available in a future Filr release.
If users have file system rights to a folder on an NSS volume, and the Filr administrator configures a Net Folder and grants the users rights to access the Net Folder within Filr, users cannot see the Net Folder in Filr if:
There are no file system trustees assigned to the volume
There are no eDirectory trustees present (including treeadmin and ncp server)
To create a Net Folder Server connection to an OES server, the volume objects and user objects on the OES server must be real objects rather than external references. In other words, a replica containing these objects is needed on the OES server.
If a user moves or renames a file directly from the file server (instead of using a Filr client to do the move or rename), any shares that are associated with that file in Filr are removed. This means that users who gained access to a file via a share in Filr no longer have access to the file if the file was moved or renamed from the file server. Additionally, the file is not displayed in users’ Shared by Me and Shared with Me views.
If this situation occurs, files must be re-shared in Filr.
When changing the MySQL root password via the phpMyAdmin tool (as described in Step 4 in Configuring and Maintaining the MySQL Database Appliance
in the Novell Filr 1.0 Installation and Configuration Guide), it appears that the action does not complete.
Though the Processing Request banner does not disappear, the password is changed.
There are currently no known search index issues.
The Novell Filr desktop application allows you to synchronize your Novell Filr files with the file system on your computer, and then modify the files without accessing the Filr site directly. Additions and modifications are synchronized between Filr and your computer.
For information about how to set up the Filr desktop application for your organization and perform other administrative tasks, see Configuring the Filr Desktop Application to Access Files
in the Novell Filr 1.0 Administration Guide.
For information about how to install and run the Filr desktop application, see the Novell Filr Desktop Application for Windows Quick Start.
For specific issues related to end users of the Filr desktop application, see the Novell Filr Desktop Application Readme.
If you have enabled port redirection for the Filr appliance (which allows users to specify the Filr site URL without including the port number), users must sign in to the Filr site when performing an action from the Filr desktop application that launches the embedded browser. For example, if users share files from the Filr desktop application, they must sign in to Filr to share the files.
In this situation, users can get automatic sign-in to work when using the embedded browser if they enter the port in the server URL when configuring the desktop application.
For more information about enabling port redirection, see Changing the Network Configuration Settings
in the Novell Filr 1.0 Installation and Configuration Guide.
If NetIQ Access Manager is configured to front Filr, users must sign in to the Filr site when performing an action from the Filr desktop application that launches the embedded browser. For example, if a user shares a file from the Filr desktop application, they must sign in to Filr to share the file.
In the Filr Desktop Quick Start in languages other than English, the Quick Start incorrectly states the following, regarding the deletion of folders and files from the Filr desktop application: “Only documents and folders in your My Files folder are deleted on the server. If you delete a document or folder that is not in your My Files folder, it is no longer synchronized to the Filr desktop application, and the files and folders remain on the server.”
Ensure that your users are aware of the correct behavior. Otherwise, if they follow the incorrect statement, it can lead to information being inadvertently deleted from Filr.
The correct information is as follows:
When deleting files and folders from the Filr desktop application, the files and folders are also deleted on the server for all files in Net Folders and in the My Files area. The behavior when a file or folder is deleted in the Shared with Me area is different.
If you delete a file or folder from the Shared with Me area, and that file or folder has been directly shared with you, it is no longer synchronized to the Filr desktop application, and the files and folders remain on the server.
If you delete a file or folder that is a subfolder of a folder that was shared with you, or if the file is located in a folder that was shared with you, the file or folder is deleted, if you have sufficient rights to delete it.
For information about how to install and run the Filr mobile app, see the Novell Filr Mobile App Quick Start.
Following are known issues in the Filr mobile app:
Accessing a file from the area from the mobile app does not trigger Just-in-Time synchronization.
If you have configured only Just-in-Time synchronization (scheduled synchronization is not enabled), files that are located in a Net Folder that have been added to the area on the mobile app are not automatically updated with changes made from the file system. The file is updated in the area only after a user uses one of the Filr clients to browse to the Net Folder that contains the file.
If users have added files from their Home folder to the Downloads area on the mobile app, and then the Filr administrator enables personal storage (as described in Setting Up Personal Storage
in the in the Novell Filr 1.0 Administration Guide), files from the Home folder are removed from the Downloads area on the mobile app.
If users have added files from a Net Folder to the Downloads area on the mobile app, and then the file is renamed or moved on the OES or Windows file system, the file is removed from the Downloads area on the mobile app.
If a user’s Filr password contains double-byte characters, the user cannot log in to the Filr mobile app.
When attempting to upload a file to Filr from the DropBox app, the upload might fail if the file contains a percent character (%).
If the upload fails, remove the % character (or replace it by typing the % on the keyboard), then try to upload the file again.
There are currently no known developer issues.
When a report.csv file for an activity report is opened in Microsoft Excel, Chinese characters do not display correctly, even though the report.csv file has been created correctly. This is because Excel always reads the file using the ISO Latin character set.
One workaround is to use the OpenOffice.org Calc spreadsheet program instead of Excel. It displays Chinese characters correctly.
As a workaround in Excel:
Import the report.csv file into Excel by using .
Select the report.csv file, then click .
Select , select , then click .
Select as the delimiter, click , then click .
Excel should now display the Chinese characters correctly.
When Filr is fronted by NetIQ Access Manager, only the Filr administrator is able to access Filr directly. When Filr is accessed directly in this configuration, simultaneous logout for the Filr system is not successful.
After the Filr administrator logs in directly to Filr (and Filr is configured with Access Manager), all browser sessions should be immediately closed to ensure logout.
The following sources provide information about Novell Filr 1.0:
Online product documentation: Novell Filr 1.0 Documentation Web site
Product documentation included within Novell Filr. In the desktop view, click your linked name in the upper-right corner of the Filr Home page, then click . In the mobile view, click > .
In addition to the Novell Filr product documentation, the following resources provide additional information about Filr 1.0:
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