FileRise

Prerequisites

Before you deploy, make sure you have:

• An active Azure subscription
• An SSH key pair
• A VNet and subnet in the target region
• NSG inbound rules that allow 22/tcp from your management network and 80/tcp for the web interface

Standard_B2s (2 vCPU / 4 GiB RAM) is a sensible starting point. Size up for heavier use or large libraries, and grow the OS disk for more storage. FileRise serves plain HTTP on port 80. For production, terminate TLS in front of it with your own domain.

Step 1 - Deploy from the Azure Marketplace

Sign in to the Azure Portal, choose Create a resource, search the Marketplace for FileRise by SecureAnyCloud, and select Create.

On Basics, pick your subscription, resource group, region and size. Under Administrator account, choose SSH public key and paste your key. Under Inbound port rules, allow SSH (22) and HTTP (80). Then select Review + create and Create.

Step 2 - Deploy from the Azure CLI

# Accept the Marketplace terms once per subscription (required before the first CLI deploy)
az vm image terms accept --urn sac1647283583153:filerise-ubuntu-24-04:default:latest
az vm create \
  --resource-group <your-rg> \
  --name filerise \
  --image sac1647283583153:filerise-ubuntu-24-04:default:latest \
  --size Standard_B2s \
  --admin-username azureuser \
  --ssh-key-values ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub \
  --vnet-name <your-vnet> --subnet <your-subnet> \
  --public-ip-sku Standard
az vm open-port --resource-group <your-rg> --name filerise --port 80 --priority 1010

Step 3 - Connect to your VM

ssh azureuser@<vm-public-ip>

Step 4 - Confirm the service is running

Apache serves FileRise on port 80 with PHP 8.3. Confirm that the web service and the first-boot service are active, and that Apache is listening and responding:

systemctl is-active apache2 filerise-firstboot
sudo ss -tlnp | grep ':80 ' curl -s -o /dev/null -w 'HTTP %{http_code}\n' http://127.0.0.1/

Step 5 - Retrieve your admin password

On the first boot of every VM, filerise-firstboot.service generates a unique password for the admin administrator account. It seeds the FileRise admin account with that password and writes the details to a root-only file. Read it with:

sudo cat /root/filerise-credentials.txt

The password shown above is unique to your VM. There is no default login, so no two VMs ever share a credential.

Step 6 - Confirm the setup wizard is closed

FileRise ships no default admin, so the SecureAnyCloud image closes its first-run setup flow permanently. An unauthenticated request to create an administrator is refused, and only the per-VM admin account exists.

Confirm the PHP version, confirm that the app responds, and confirm that the setup wizard cannot be used to create a rogue admin:

php -v | head -1 curl -s -o /dev/null -w 'FileRise: HTTP %{http_code}\n' http://127.0.0.1/ curl -s -X POST -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{"username":"rogue","password":"x123456","isAdmin":true}' \
  http://127.0.0.1/api/admin/addUser.php?setup=1 echo
sudo grep -c ':' /var/www/users/users.txt

The setup request is refused and never returns "User added successfully". users.txt still holds exactly one account, the per-VM admin.

Step 7 - Sign in to FileRise

Browse to http://<vm-public-ip>/. Because the setup wizard is closed, a fresh VM always shows the sign-in page and never a setup form. Enter admin and the password from Step 5.

Step 8 - Upload, browse and manage files

Once signed in, you land in the file manager. Drag files onto the upload panel or use Choose files. They appear immediately in the list with their size and modified time.

From here you can preview, rename, move, share and delete files, tag and search them, and manage folder-level access.

Step 9 - Organize files into folders

Use New, then Folder, to create folders. Drag files between folders or into the folder tree on the left.

Click a folder to open it. The breadcrumb at the top shows where you are and lets you navigate back. Each folder can have its own access rules for other users you add.

Step 10 - Where your files live

FileRise stores everything as flat files under /var/www: uploads, the user database and metadata. These files are kept outside the web root at /var/www/public, so they are only ever served through the authenticated API and never directly by the web server. There is no database to manage:

ls -ld /var/www/public /var/www/uploads /var/www/users /var/www/metadata
sudo grep -c ':' /var/www/users/users.txt
sudo ls /var/www/users/.setup_complete
sudo swapon --show || echo '(no swap)'

Maintenance

• Back up your files: because FileRise needs no database, a backup is simply a copy of /var/www/uploads (your files), /var/www/users (accounts and permissions) and /var/www/metadata (tags, share links and indexes). Snapshot the OS disk, or use tar on those directories.
• Add users: sign in as admin and use Admin then Users to add people and set folder-level access, alongside the built-in admin account. Change your own password from the account menu.
• Storage capacity: files live on the VM's OS disk. For larger libraries, grow the disk in Azure, or attach and mount a data disk under /var/www/uploads.
• Optional features: folder encryption at rest is available, and PHP sodium is installed. You can add virus scanning (ClamAV) and video thumbnails (FFmpeg) if you need them.
• Security updates: unattended security upgrades are enabled, so the OS keeps itself patched. Reboot when a new kernel is installed.
• TLS: for production, front FileRise with your own domain and a TLS-terminating reverse proxy or Azure Application Gateway.

Support

SecureAnyCloud provides 24/7/365 expert technical support for this image. Contact sales@secureanycloud.com.

FileRise is licensed under MIT. SecureAnyCloud provides this image, and additional charges apply for build, maintenance and 24/7 support.

Deploy on Azure

Launch FileRise on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS on Azure with 24/7 support from SecureAnyCloud.

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Need Help?

Our support team is available 24/7.

sales@secureanycloud.com