Direct File Upload and Download

In some cases it may be easier and more efficient to directly send connector files to the Modelshop server and to retrieve model output as files from the server. Modelshop supports direct access to customer specific landing zones using the WebDav protocol as well as through a private cloud file management service (implemented using ownCloud).

In order to access the cloud file sharing website or WebDav access to direct file sharing, you must request an account be created in the Modelshop cloud server (at https://cloud.modelshop.com). Currently this service must be provisioned by a Modelshop staff member.

Once an account is created, you will receive an invite to register and create a password. The Modelshop Cloud administrator will in most cases create a customer specific share area in the cloud that invited users can access and that the customer’s Modelshop server can access.

Sharing files with the OwnCloud client sync tool

The easiest way to synchronize files with cloud.modelshop.com is using the OwnCloud client agent. This method is recommended for Windows clients (WebDav can be unreliable on Windows). Customers who are sharing files via a Linux environment may prefer WebDav, but a Linux OwnClient is also an option. The main difference between the OwnCloud client and WebDav is that the OwnCloud client synchronizes the files, leaving a local copy of the file on the machine, where WebDav is a volume mount point where the files are not hosted locally. Local files require more disk space, but also leaves the files available in case the cloud service is unreachable.

Instructions for installation of the OwnCloud client can be found here: https://doc.owncloud.com/desktop/next/installing.html

Sharing files with WebDav

WebDav sharing acts more like any other remote filesystem mount and may be preferred over the OwnCloud client for server to server file sharing. Instructions for setting up WebDav with an OwnCloud server can be found here: https://doc.owncloud.com/server/next/user_manual/files/access_webdav.html

For https://cloud.modelshop.com there are some slight changes to the URLs provided in the sample instructions. For clarity, the instructions for mounting an example WebDav drive for a sample Modelshop cloud user ‘myuser’ with password ‘mypassword’ and a linux user name of ‘linuxuser’ is given below.

This example assumes Debian/Ubuntu, for CentOS, Fedora, etc use yum instead of apt-get. While installing devfs2, you will be prompted whether root is required to mount WebDav mounts, choose based on your security policy.

/home/linuxuser
% sudo apt-get install davfs2
% sudo usermod -aG davfs2 linuxuser
% mkdir ~/modelshop
% mkdir ~/.davfs2
% sudo cat /etc/davfs2/secrets > ~/.davfs2/secrets
% chmod 600 ~/.davfs2/secrets

Note: If you are logged in as ‘linuxuser’ you must log out and re-login for the davfs2 group membership to take effect Note: Above assumes the modelshop directory will be placed in the linuxuser home directory. The mount point can be placed elsewhere, just substitute the location in place of ~/modelshop in the instructions. The .davfs2 directory should remain in the home directory of the user mounting the folder.

Edit the ~/.davfs2/secrets to add the following line at the bottom:

/home/linuxuser/modelshop myuser mypassword

Make a backup and edit the file /etc/fstab (using sudo) to add the following line at the bottom:

https://cloud.modelshop.com/remote.php/webdav /home/linuxuser/owncloud davfs user,rw,auto 0 0

The Modelshop cloud file share can then be mounted and unmounted with the following commands:

/home/linuxuser
% sudo mount ~/modelshop

You may be prompted with user name (myuser) and password, as well as a request to accept the SSL certificate from the cloud.modelshop.com site.

% sudo umount ~/modelshop

The mount point will include some misc. files and folders (e.g. the ownCloud manual). If provisioned by Modelshop staff, there should be a directory, likely named the same as the customer company name. This is the directory where files should be uploaded or downloaded based on an agreed directory structure.