The file admin interface for the IF Archive

• Copyright 2023-24 by the Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation
• Distributed under the MIT license
• Created by Andrew Plotkin [email protected]

This is the web interface that allows administrators and volunteers to move files around the IF Archive and edit the Index files that describe them.

The web service maintains a list of users (including administrators). This uses a traditional web login process with authentication cookies. However, accounts are not self-service; each account must be created by an admin with command-line access.

(We assume that admins have login accounts on the Archive server. Other volunteers do not; their only access is through the web service.)

The service is built on Python, server-side WSGI, and a whole lot of extremely Web-1.0 HTML forms. At present there is no Javascript at all.

Principles

We separate the work into roles as much as possible. A user can have any number of roles. The current roles are:

• "incoming": Move files from /incoming to /unprocessed.
• "filing": Move files from /unprocessed to other archive directories.
• "index": Edit Index files.
• "rebuild": Run build-indexes to regenerate the Archive's public index pages.
• "log": View the log of admin tool activity.
• "admin": Do everything.

It should not be possible to destroy or overwrite files from the web service. Mistakes should always be recoverable, although it might take an admin to untangle serious problems.

Thus, "deleting" a file moves it to the /trash directory, where it will live for at least 30 days. Similarly, whenever you edit an Index file, the previous version is copied to /trash.

All activity is logged, and users can review the log (at least the recent part).

Contents

• admin.wsgi: A Python script that handles the main web interface. This lives in /var/ifarchive/wsgi-bin.
• tinyapp: A general web-app framework for WSGI apps. Used by admin.wsgi. Lives in /var/ifarchive/wsgi-bin.
• adminlib: App-specific support for admin.wsgi. Lives in /var/ifarchive/wsgi-bin.
• templates: HTML templates for various admin pages. Lives in /var/ifarchive/lib/admintool.
• sample.config: Config file. Lives in /var/ifarchive/lib/ifarch.config. Note that the version in this repository is an incomplete sample. The real ifarch.config has settings for other tools (upload, ifmap).
• css/admintool.css: Stylesheet. Lives in /var/ifarchive/htdocs/misc.

The tool also makes use of the SQLite database in /var/ifarchive/lib/sql. This must be writable by both Apache and the admins.

Command-line use

python3 /var/ifarchive/wsgi-bin/admin.wsgi

This will display a list of command-line commands.

Testing

It is possible to test the admin interface on a local Apache server. See TESTING.md.