Allowing File Imports via FTP

One of the advanced features of Jamroom, is the ability for an artist to "import" audio and video files from an "uploads" directory. This directory in turn can be symlinked to an FTP account, making it easy for a user to upload their media files using their favorite FTP client, then "importing" them into Jamroom.

There are some things to consider before enabling this feature:

• This feature is only documented for UNIX based servers (i.e. Linux) - it might work on a Windows Server, but it has not been tested.
• This feature requires shell level server access (it is recommended to be running your own dedicated server).
• This feature is NOT appropriate for very large systems, as it requires an individual FTP login and password for each user that can access this feature.
• This feature does NOT work on systems running the Jamroom Cluster Server
• If your PHP is NOT running as a CGI, then the files will need to be manually deleted by the user after importing them into Jamroom, which could result in extra disk space being used.

Configuration

To enable the File Imports, edit the Jamroom Quota associated with the Artist Profile(s) you would like to enable it for and set the Allow Imports option to yes:



This will make it so Jamroom will now check the artist's "uploads" directory, located within the Jamroom directory, whenever they are creating or modifying a Song or a Video.  SO for example, if our Artist is band_id "25", the uploads directory associated with the artist account would be:

jamroom/uploads/25

Any Audio or Video Files placed within that directory would be made available for "import" into the Artists Create or Modify song and video screens.

Linking upload directory to FTP Account directory

Now that we have enabled uploads for the Jamroom Quota(s) we want to have access to this feature, our next step is to "link" the upload directory to an FTP account, so the user can FTP files into their uploads directory:

• First, create the User Account for FTP using your normal method for creating an account (i.e. useradd).  If you do not have access to create FTP accounts, you will need to contact your system administrator for help - Jamroom cannot create User Accounts on your server.
• Once the FTP account has been created, the next step is to "link" the FTP account directory to the Jamroom uploads directory.  As an example we will assume the FTP account has been created as /home/ftpuser, and the Jamroom uploads directory is located at /var/www/html/uploads.  We want to use the UNIX "ln" (link) command to link these 2 directories.  So log in via SSH (shell) and run the command:

• Now when the "ftpuser" logs into their account via FTP, they will see an "uploads" directory - by simply uploading files into this directory, those files will be made available to them in Jamroom.  Note that the /var/www/html/uploads/25 directory MUST be writable by the FTP user account as well.