My Favourite Feature: The File Fabric Client Ecosystem

My name is Erik, I work as Director of Engineering, Storage Made Easy in the US. I want to share my favorite File Fabric feature with you. Some day’s life gets hectic, and it is not just work I am talking about. As you can use all SME features in a personal account, this post will focus on enterprise deployments.

As an IT department, it is hard to respond to every demand. First the users, there is some combination of “access anywhere”, “BYOD”, “VPN free”, “faster”, “bigger”, etc. Then as a manager your requirements are something like this: Continue reading “My Favourite Feature: The File Fabric Client Ecosystem”

April 10, 2015July 25, 2016

OpenStack Swift iOS App beta testers wanted

We are currently working on a dedicated standalone iOS App for OpenStack Swift and we have reached the point where beta testers are required for the first build.

Continue reading “OpenStack Swift iOS App beta testers wanted”

March 25, 2015March 31, 2015

SME iOS Cloud File File Manager app now with Touch-ID, Document Provider & Share extensions

The latest iOS SME client app version 3.13 released on the 25th March has been updated with very useful new features, following is a list of some of the main ones:

— Document Provider —

The new Document Provider feature makes SME Cloud available to other 3rd party apps giving easy access to your SME files.

For example, you can now import a file from a mapped SME Cloud into dropbox as follows:

Continue reading “SME iOS Cloud File File Manager app now with Touch-ID, Document Provider & Share extensions”

February 4, 2015

Turning your iOS or Android device into a wireless Flash Drive

This blog post title may seem a little strange given that Storage Made Easy promotes the use of secure cloud file share and sync but we understand that there are times when you simply want to bulk move files directly from a laptop or PC to be able to access them on the move.

A little know feature of the free SME iOS and Android Apps is that they have the ability to turn themselves into an FTP Server which can be wirelessly connected to from an FTP client on the same network.

This allows files to be easily uploaded to the App in Bulk on each device.

From a security viewpoint you will still want to secure the files in the event you lost the device or the device is stolen.

On iOS the SME App can be protected by a pin, and the forthcoming release supplemented by fingerprint Touch ID for devices that support it. Also If you turn on the device password for the iOS device then the SME App takes advantage of the encryption features build into iOS and all files are encrypted when the device is ‘locked’ or “at rest”.

On Android the SME App can also be protected by a pin but for additional security users should consider encrypting their device storage. You can read an article now how to do that here.

January 16, 2015May 31, 2018

Automating iOS Application Testing Part 1

There are popular frameworks for automating iOS testing like Calabash and Frank but they can only automate your own app which is very limiting. For example you can’t automate pressing the ‘Home’ button, switching to another app, going into airplane mode, rebooting the device, touching anywhere on the screen outside your own app etc

As a concrete example, the new version of the SME iOS client app that we are currently working on implements the Document Provider extension which allows other apps to open an SME document. To automate Picking an SME Document, you’d have to automate the host app which normally you have no control over.

The existing automation testing frameworks don’t provide the required control so a better solution is needed.

Gaining control of your devices

One way of gaining enough control of your testing devices is by jailbreaking them. With a jailbroken device you can SSH into it and run system commands.

To be able to SSH into the device, first install OpenSSH from inside Cydia.

You also need to find the IP address of the jailbroken device by going to Settings/Wi-Fi and touching the name of the wi-fi connection being used.

Then SSH into the device from your computer’s terminal app, for example if the device’s IP address is 192.168.1.23, the following command allows you to SSH into it:

> ssh root@192.168.1.23
> password: alpine

Before you can simulate actions on the device you need to install Activator ( created by Ryan Petrich ) and SimulateTouch ( created by iolate ). To find them just do a search inside Cydia.

Activator allows you to run automation commands like for example:

– Run the SME app or bring it to the foreground if already running:

> activator send com.janats.smestorage

Run the Readdle Documents iPad app:

> activator send com.readdle.ReaddleDocsIPad

Simulate touching the home button:

> activator send libactivator.system.homebutton

To list the commands you can run with activator use the following command:

> activator listeners

SimulateTouch allows you to run the following command to simulate a touch on the screen position with x=100 and y=200:

> stouch touch 100 200

With Activator and SimulateTouch you can automate just about everything but you also need to download the screenshots taken by your device which will be processed on your computer to determine if a test has succeeded.

To take a screenshot use the following command:

> activator send libactivator.system.take-screenshot

The device will save the screenshot image to:

/var/mobile/Media/DCIM/100APPLE

You can look at the contents of that folder with the command:

ls /var/mobile/Media/DCIM/100APPLE

You should see images with names like “IMG_0260.PNG”, the index will increment for each screenshot taken.

To retrieve the image to your computer you can use SCP as follows:

scp root@192.168.1.23:/var/mobile/Media/DCIM/100APPLE/IMG_0260.PNG ./

You should then have the screenshot available locally.

Now we’re equipped with the tools we need for the implementation of an automated testing framework.

To where your appetites for the next part of this article please find below a short video of the automated visual testing framework that has been created to easily test iOS Apps.

December 12, 2012

Manage and Sync with all your Cloud Services using Storage Made Easy’s iOS App

We’ve updated the Storage Made Easy iPad / iPhone App. As with all Storage Made Easy mobile clients, the App unifies public cloud services such as Box, SkyDrive, Google Drive, DropBox, Amazon S3 as well as private cloud services such as OpenStack, FTP(s), WebDav, Zimbra etc.

The App also features our innovative CloudDav feature. CloudDav enables WebDav across any Cloud that is mapped to the App. This then enables users to edit documents using any of their storage services with Doc editing Apps such as iWork, even if the native Cloud does not actually support WebDav.

This update includes a number of refinements and changing such as slight tweak to support the iPhone 5 screen resolution, and the release also extends the Business WorkSpaces feature. This feature lets users create Business WorkSpaces directly from the App and enables members of the group to share files securely with each other.

Cross Cloud Search is also a feature of the App. This means, for example, that if you need to search for files related to a a certain project keyword you can simply type the search terms and all the cloud data sources that you have mapped to the App will be searched and the aggregated results returned.

For the SME business SaaS and on-premise Appliance customers the integration of the SaaS and hybrid Appliance with on-premise Active Directory servers enables single sign-on as users can authenticate with their Active Directory username and passwords.

Some review comments taken from the App store reviews can be seen below:

“This app is a must have if you want to easily manage and have functionality between up to 3 cloud apps. SME is e a very advanced app. So far I’ve been able to download zip files from my email, un-zip (or in SME terminology unarchive) and send to any of my cloud accounts. I can transfer files between clouds from the app either by cloud copy or cloud cut, the later of which will move the file. There’s definitely a learning curve for the advanced features, but the ones I described are easy learn. SME has bar non the best tech support I’ve ever dealt with. On three occasions I needed help to learn the functions, and within 30 minutes tech support had my problem resolved. P.S. not being tech savvy the 3 problems were on my end. By far this is one of the best apps I’ve purchased. The functionality it provides the Pages App alone makes SME worth every penny.”

“Needed a WebDav solution for iWork apps in order to move files to and from the iPad. Dropbox does not support WebDav, iWork does not support Dropbox. iSMEStorage fills the void, providing WebDav services to Dropbox and many other cloud storage providers. Getting WebDav enabled via SME’s CloudDav was not as easy as it could have been, but SME Support was fantastic, getting me up and running on the weekend. All I can say is well done! Now I can move files on & off the iPad seamlessly. Very nice! Well worth the one time charge for the app.”

“First App I’ve used that lets me sync a few different folders on different clouds in one go, and editing files from clouds that iWork does not support is pretty cool however they manage to do it !”

“This is a great supplement for creating your own personal cloud service. Great!”

iSMEStorage from Storage Made Easy is available in the Apple App Store for iPad and iPhone users.

March 3, 2012January 30, 2015

Integrating iAnnotate with Google Drive, Amazon S3, OpenStack, and other Cloud Storage solutions

The latest version of iAnnotate PDF, the iPad App that enables editing of PDF Documents, adds support for WebDav which means that you can use the SME ClouDav Protocol Adaptor, free with the iOS SME iOS App, to connect iAnnotate to many Clouds that it does not natively support. SMES supports integration with more Storage and SaaS Clouds than any other service.

The steps to enable access to the Clouds mapped to your SME Account are simple:

CloudDav is enabled with all Business Cloud File Server Accounts and also available in the on-premise enterprise version of the Storage Made Easy EFSS solution.

November 8, 2011April 2, 2015

You don’t need to Jailbreak to have the full files experience on your iPad / iPhone

I was talking to a friend recently and he was bemoaning the fact that he had upgraded his iPad 2 and therefore lost his jailbreak Apps, and in particular the iFile application which he felt made the iPad into more of a a laptop replacement. Without this he felt that as well as his iPad he also needed his laptop on trips “just in case”.

This got me thinking and I asked him what it was he needed to do. His answer was:

“I need to be able to save files from my email locally, and then be able to send files I’ve saved on my device as an attachment, and I also need to be able to download any file type from the web browser and email if I need to. I also need access to my internal office files over WebDav, my own personal DropBox files, and also files stored from our supplier which are hosted on a Amazon S3 Account they give us. With the Amazon S3 files I need to download then locally as I need to be able to share them with our customers as they are product information sheets, and I cannot just set them public in Amazon S3 as I don’t want to make these files available to everyone.

Additional to all of this I also want to be able to work with my Local files ie create directories, and even cut and paste files so that I can organise them, just like I would do on my laptop.”

I stepped through with him how he could do all of this with our Storage Made Easy iOS client and he was amazed. He did not know he could do some of these things without jailbreaking his iPad. Given the value he got from our chat he cajoled me into putting together this blog post outlining what I went through with him to share any value other readers / users would get from it.

Lets take the things he mentioned one by one:

1. Requirement: I need to be able to save files from email and web browser locally – You can save any attachment from your email into SME, even if the iPad does not recognise the file. The SME App lets you save any file type from email or Safari. Once it is saved you can choose to view it within SME, or send it as an attachment using the iOS email client. You can also choose to open the file into another iOS App and work with/on the file from there.

2. Requirement: I need to access my internal office files that I can share using WebDav and also my DropBox files – The SME App fully support access to local files over the WebDav protocol directly from the iPad and also works with DropBox. Both sets of files are presented in a unified file system so that they can easily be managed and you can even copy and paste files between the two.

3. Requirement: I need to be able to work with my Amazon S3 files and be able to download and share them over email with my supplier: As with DropBox and WebDav The SME App supports Amazon S3 and enables files to be managed or moved between clouds, as well as being download locally. However SME also enables you to share Amazon S3 files without making the files public on Amazon S3. You can even set a link expiry so that the file links that are shared eventually expire.

The SME App does not just work with WebDav, Amazon S3, and DropBox it now works with over 50 Storage Clouds.

4. Requirement: I also want to be able to work with my Local files ie create directories, and even cut and paste files so that I can organise them, just like I would do on my laptop – You can do exactly this in SME local files view. You can move files about using cut and paste and you can also create directories to help organise your files.

This touches only part of what can be done with the Storage Made EasyCloud and Local File Manager. Please see the slideshow below to see more:

iSMEStorage for iPad: Cloud File Manager

View more presentations from SMEStorage

October 5, 2011January 23, 2012

Cloud Computing Use Case: Sharing PDF’s stored on SkyDrive with an “on the road” team using Galaxy Tab and iPad’s

Given the propensity for so many different use cases that using the Cloud with Files can come up with we thought we’d start sharing some of the day-to-day use cases we deal with here on our blog.

This one is an inbound request in which a business has a series of PDF’s stored in a folder hierarchy on SkyDrive that they need to share with a distributed team that uses a combination of Galaxy Tab and iPad’s. The files need to be synchronised for offline use and the files can be updated each evening so the remote people need to be able to resync the files locally to get the latest versions for offline use.

Firstly lets address SlyDrive. In this event all the business needs to is to start using our Cloud File Server and add the SkyDrive Cloud to their account from the Cloud DashBoard. This starts a wizard in which the user is stepped through adding the SkyDrive Cloud.

Once this is done the Business Admin of the Cloud File Server needs to convert the folder containing the PDF’s into a shared Organization Folder. This means that any users that are added to the Cloud File Server will be able to see this folder.

The Business Cloud Admin can now choose to set the types of permissions that they wish to set on the folder (read only, etc).

Once this is done The Cloud Admin can add the users:

Now this is setup lets move to the tablet side. We’ll take the iPad first:

IPAD:

Each of the users that the Cloud File Server Admin added to the Cloud File Server can access their account using the iSMEStorage iPad App. once logged in they will be able to view files on the Cloud in a unique Cloud Files view.

However as per the business requirements we need to be able to sync the folder that was shared containing PDF’s down to the device. To do this the user needs to visit that particular folder in the Cloud File Manager and nominate the folder for local sync.

Once this is done the user can go to ‘My Syncs’ from the menu and action a sync which will download all the PDF’s locally. In future as the documents are updated overnight he just needs to visit My Syncs again and choose to resync which will download the newest files.

Galaxy Tab:

As with the iPad the user needs to visit the PDF directory from the Cloud Files view and nominate the PDF folder for Sync in the SMEStorage Android App.

Once this is done the user can return to My syncs, click on the directory and choose to sync. This will download the relevant PDF’s to the iPad. Again a sync can be done each day to update the latest files.

As there is less restriction on Android devices users can set the App to do a scheduled sync daily. Unfortunately this is not currently possible on the iPad.

September 1, 2011

CloudDav update – say goodbye to those additional files in iWork

The SMEStorage implementation of CloudDav enables us to provide WebDav over any Cloud whether the underlying Cloud supports it or not. This has great use on devices such as the iPad when users want to use Google Docs with iWork or SKyDrive with iWork etc.

One of the small niggling issues we’ve had is that when files are saved using iWork the CloudDav implementation creates two extra files. One is the original file which is data and timestamped and the other is an empty file. The reason for this is:

1. Whenever SMEStorage changes a file (if file versioning is not turned on) then the original file is actually versioned and moved to Trash. The file is not actually removed from the underlying Cloud until the Trash is emptied and is visible in the same directory as the newly created file, except it has a date and timestamp appended to it.

2. iWork actually creates an empty file when you are working with the file you wish to edit. This file is empty and is a lock on a file that it lets go of once the file has been saved, but it results in the creation of a real empty file.

Most of our users who use CloudDav with iWork just want one file that they changed to be saved and no additional files which they have to manually remove.

To accommodate this we’ve added a new setting in the Cloud DashBoard (accessible from the right sidebar after login):

This option is on for all new CloudDav accounts and can be turned on for any existing CloudDav accounts. This will prevent the creation of the extra two files in iWork on the iPad / iPhone.

July 25, 2011July 25, 2011

Implementing secure document delivery of private data to the iPad

One of the interesting projects we’ve recently been looking at with several customers is implementing secure document delivery of private (and in some cases public) data to the iPad using a combination of our Open Cloud Platform and our iSMEStorage iPad App.

The iPad seems to have become the executive, and salesman’s choice of device for mobility and ease of use. We’re seeing it everywhere from high end Finance to very small two to three man businesses.

What restricts some businesses from being able to use the iPad a means of accessing Cloud Data that they store on premise or in public Clouds in private accounts is often security. They need a level of security that can be above what is required for normal everyday use. I’ve outlined some of the requirements below:

1. Requirement to have full control over Cloud File Server / Gateway. This requires the company implementing our Open Cloud Platform on their premise or in their data centre. This is reasonable straight forward and we have a whitepaper on the architecture for high availability here.

2. The iPad has to be a complete sandbox and not accessible as a “File system”. Of course, the way Apple designed iOS Apps was that each operate in their own sandbox directory and by default there is no access to different directories from within Apps (unlike Android). However if the device jailbroken all bets are off. To this end, we implemented in our code for such clients that detects if the device is jail broken when the App is installed or launched. If it is then the App becomes inaccessible.

3. Of course in in point 2 above, if the App is not launched and someone gets access to the filesystem via a jailbreak then the files could still be compromised. To this end we have implemented encryption on PIN. The current version of iSMEStorage already enables adding a PIN over above login. For private customers we this PIN to also encrypt the data on the iPad, much like you can do using the home directory encryption that Apple provides on the Mac. This now means that if the device is jailbroken and the App is not launched then the files, even if accessed, cannot be viewed. This feature may well make it’s way into our App Store iSMEStorage App at some point in the future.

4. In the unlikely event someone does get access to the App then all documents that are accessed can be encrypted using the SMEStorage Cloud Platform which means that a PIN is required to download them to the device (where the are encrypted anyway). The encryption is 256 bit AES encryption.

5. Integration with third party authentication services. A number of clients we’ve worked with have their own third party authentication services. In some cases we’ve need to look at integrating these into the authentication mechanism used for our iPad App. Two examples are Ping Identity Server and Arcot mobile authentication solution. You can view a short whitepaper on security integration here.

6. Disabling any document sharing with other Apps. This of course makes perfect sense in a world where you want the ultimate security for files and was simply a case of disabling this feature. This presented some challenges where customers wanted still to have some editing capabilities of documents. To this end we entered into OEM’s with best of breed third party solutions for such private implementations that enable document editing from within the App as well as PDF annotation for PDF documents.

Taking these steps a secure document delivery solution can be achieved for Private data. Public data, stored on such services as Amazon S3, or RackSpace, can if required also be accessed by “plugging them” in at a Cloud Platform Server level. Additional data becomes part of the Cloud File System and can be managed easily within the virtual directory. The Organisation can use the options in the SMEStorage Cloud File Server to require encryption for all documents stored on such services that pass through the Cloud Gateway.