EXtplorer on OpenWRT

eXtplorer is a web based file explorer available through a web browser. See https://extplorer.net/ for additional information

The author of the software spells it CamelCase as eXtplorer. However MediaWiki does not allow article titles to begin with a lower case letter, hence the name of the source article in this article being titled EXtplorer instead of eXtplorer.

Wonky

Best to get this out of the way first, so readers don't get frustrated when using it: The software works, but there is some 'wonky' behavior in some web browsers (Chrome and Edge (which is based on Chrome) and Firefox mostly;

• Directory Loading: Sometimes when logging on the contents of a directory are not displayed (the "loading" message displays for a couple of seconds and then displays a blank directory) Solution? A refresh of the page OR clicking the back button and then the forward button clears up the issue.
• Logging Out: Clicking on the logout button doesn't seem to work. Solution? Double click it.
• Changing User Passwords: There are a couple of issues. The first issue and solution are similar to the above Logging Out issues (IE, double click the Change Button). The other issue has to do with permissions on a specific file (see the Configuration section below)
• Adding Users: This is a similar issue to Logging Out above (IE, double click the button)

Installation

• Download the installation file from the eXtplorer website ( https://extplorer.net/projects/extplorer/files )
• Copy the files to a Directory and configure Apache per how the environment for Apache is set up (the details of Apache are not covered here, safe to say, all one has to do is configure a sub-directory in a working Apache Directory at a minimum)
• Open and Extract the contents of the scripts.tar.gz file (a directory named 'scripts') to the eXtplorer Directory (eXtplorer will attempt to extract this file, but the PEAR implementation on OpenWRT seems to prevent this from occurring, so do it manually)
• Configure Ownership, Directory, and File Permissions (the assumption is that the Apache User and Group are apache and apache and that one is in the root directory for Apache when issuing the below commands);
  • Ownership: chown -R apache:apache WhatEverEXtplorerDirectoryName
  • All Directories: find WhatEverEXtplorerDirectoryName -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;
  • All Files: find WhatEverEXtplorerDirectoryName -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;
  • Specific Directory and File Permissions;
    • ftp_tmp Directory: chmod 777 PathToEXtplorer/ftp_tmp (if this is
    • "User Password File": chmod 777 PathToEXtplorer/config/.htusers.php (if this isn't done then attempting to change passwords in the eXtplorer GUI will result in an error)

Use it

Navigate to the directory that eXtplorer is installed in. eXtplorer should work at this point. If not, double check the above steps.

The default user name / password is: admin / admin

Some Solutions to issues

To change the password manually;

• Use this command to generate an encrypted version of the password: echo -n "WhatEverPassword" | md5sum (include / use the double quotes in the command, which aren't part of the password)
• Copy the generated password without the trailing dash / hyphen ( - )
• Full credit to https://theinspired.dev/blog/how-to-reset-extplorer-admin-password/ for the above items.
• Paste the generated password into this file: PathToEXtplorer/config/.htusers.php (the position to paste it in is in between the single quotes following a user name)

Thoughts

The documentation on the eXtplorer website is sparse, but is enough to get it working.

While Chrome, Edge, and Firefox have minor issues with eXtplorer, Internet Explorer seems to work with fewer of the above mentioned issues. Go figure...

Don't go down any of the PEAR error 'rabbit holes' if there are any.