Aliases for Server Folders
Administrators can, for reasons such as security, configure DiffDog Server to restrict client access to folders on the server. When server access is restricted in this way, clients can access the restricted folders via aliases. An alias is a name that maps to a designated folder on the server machine to which client access is allowed. Any folder outside the aliased folder cannot be accessed by clients.
Note that alias names are case-sensitive.
The mechanism for using aliases is as given below.
On the server
On the server machine, administrators may restrict access by modifying the server configuration file with lines like in the listing below. The steps are: (i) Use the restrict-to-aliases instruction to restrict client access to server folders; (ii) assign aliases to server folders that you want to make accessible to clients.
restrict-to-aliases = true
[alias:sandbox1]
path = C:\Public\Comparisons
[alias:sandbox2]
path = D:\Comparisons
After making these changes, save the server config file and restart DiffDog Server as a service (see Setup on Windows, Setup on Linux and Setup on macOS). From this point onwards, clients can run comparisons that reference the aliased folders. In the example above, clients can use the alias sandbox1 or sandbox2 to access their respective associated folder on the server.
On the client
If client access to server folders is restricted to aliased folders, then commands run from a remote client must always specify the command's --alias option. So, for example, if the file C:\Public\Comparisons\file.txt exists on a restricted-access server and the folder C:\Public\Comparisons\ has been assigned an alias of sandbox1, then a diff command can be run on the client by using the --alias option, as follows:
diffdogcmdlclient diff --client-left=path\to\client\file.txt --server-right=file.txt --mode=text --alias=sandbox1
To see a server's aliases from a remote client, run the aliases command on the client:
diffdogcmdlclient aliases