[digiKam-users] Multi-user digiKam setup?

[Leo Gaspard]

Hey Stefan,

Thank you! Indeed, the idea of writing all metadata to files is, I
think, much better than what I had in mind! It'll both avoid the MySQL
roundtrip for the database (while still keeping it for the actual
pictures it'll at least allow to get fast thumbnails, even if the
full-quality picture takes more time to load) and digiKam
synchronization errors (though now to update other people's picture
databases one would need to do it manually, and it'll likely be slow
over WebDAV, but at least it'd work).

I'll be reporting here as soon as I get results, hopefully soon!
Cheers,
  Leo

"Stefan Müller" <stefan.mueller.83 at gmail.com> writes:

> Hoi Leo,
>
> are still following the original thread?
> Your are not the only one who thinks about Multi-User environment, see digiKam Bug List Component:
> Database-Multiusers Product: digikam Status: REPORTED, CONFIRMED, ASSIGNED, REOPENED 
>
> I reckon those are the most recent discussion in this matter:
>
> * Multi-user with mysql server
> * [digiKam-users] Multi-user digiKam setup?
> * [digiKam-users] Use digiKam with a NAS and MariaDB
> * [digiKam-users] temporary port photos and metadata from MariaDB/network share for editing when offline /
>   being on the move
> * Wish 401622 - Simple multi-user, to start with
> * Wish 254099: SCAN : refresh collection with a script in commandline
>
> Does those ideas/approaches matches/supports your suggestions?
>
> Stefan
>
> Am 26.01.2019 um 23:31 schrieb Leo Gaspard:
>
>     Oh. So even the MySQL database backend doesn't support concurrent use?
> That'll make things harder…
>
> Anyway, thank you for your comment! I haven't really found anything that
> appears to handle this use case better than digiKam, so will report here
> if/when I get something working! With chat-based end-user-level database
> locking, for the time being :)
>
> Cheers,
>   Leo
>
> Gilles Caulier <caulier.gilles at gmail.com> writes:
>
>         Le sam. 26 janv. 2019 à 02:13, Leo Gaspard <digikam-users at leo.gaspard.io> a
> écrit :
>
>             Hello,
>
> I'll try asking just one last time, by decreasing order of importance:
>  * Is digiKam not unbearably slow when the pictures are on a WebDAV and
>    the database a remote MySQL?
>
>
> The Webdav storing was never tested here, at least be me.
>
> The network is the bottleneck here. Mysql thumbnails storing is the part
> which use the network bandwidth a lots. With 6.0.0, Maik has optimized the
> network use with Mysql.
>
>
>              * Does putting the digiKam database in MySQL put the WebDAV password in
>    the MySQL?
>
>
> No idea...
>
>
>              * Does digiKam work properly with collections on read-only filesystems
>    and especially read-only WebDAV?
>
>
> Read only is not a problem is you don't want to change the files data.
>
>
>              * Does anyone have any feedback about sharing a digiKam database with
>    other people (and not only other computers from the same person)?
>
>
> This kind of workflow is not implemented yet... You can only sync the file
> metadata with database and sync back a remote storage. It's so far not
> optimal.
>
> In all cases the database do not contains yet the guards for concurrent
> uses.
>
> Gilles Caulier
>
>
>             (more details in the quote below)
>
> Cheers,
>   Leo
>
>
> Leo Gaspard <digikam-users at leo.gaspard.io> writes:
>
>                 Hello world!
>
> I have tried IRC to bother the fewest possible people, but it looks like
> #digikam at irc.freenode.net is dead, so let's try here. Sorry for the
> noise!
>
> I am considering using digiKam, but as my use case is kind of peculiar,
> I thought I would first ask whether you think I have chances of
> succeeding at what I'm trying to do.
>
> Context: I'm trying to setup a shared photo database with my family for
> all our photographs. Photos will be shared over NextCloud, and hopefully
> digiKam would be used to both tag them and synchronize the tags. Now,
> the photo database is kind of huge, and not all computers are able to
> download it in full. In addition, not everyone has the same taste for
> photos, so I think it'd be better if everyone only had write access to
> their own directory, and read access to others'.
>
> My currently imagined solution:
>  * Each user puts their pictures in their write-for-them read-for-all
>    folder in Nextcloud
>  * Everyone runs a digiKam instances. Tags are synchronized either
>    through MySQL or by just adding the SQLite database to the Nextcloud
>  * digiKam is setup to directly fetch the photos from WebDAV from the
>    Nextcloud instance
>
> So my questions are:
>  1. Do you have advice on whether to pick MySQL or synchronize the
>     SQLite database over Nextcloud? (I will have linux, windows and mac
>     clients) Will sharing the database not risk sharing the WebDAV
>     credentials?
>  2. Does digiKam handle well-enough collections on read-only folders?
>  3. What do you think about the overall idea?
>  4. Bonus question: Ideally users could also have their own private
>     databases that are not shared. Does digiKam handles properly
>     switching between two databases, ideally  with one that includes the
>     other?
>  5. Trick question: If an answer is no, is there any project other than
>     digiKam that could handle these requirements and that you would know
>     about?
>
> I've searched a bit the manual and didn't find much about these
> questions, and I must say I'd rather request an opinion from someone
> knowledgeable before starting the setup, that will likely be kind of
> long and complex, especially if done with MySQL. Sorry if the questions
> are already answered someplace I didn't find!
>
> Cheers, and thank you for digiKam that looks like some nice piece of
> software!
>   Leo