Some short instructions for the people struggling with the installation (debian/ubuntu) This will do a side wide installation of the dependencies, and we will use nginx to proxy our requests.

install python 3.4 and pip3

sudo apt-get install python3.4 python3-pip

clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/siacs/HttpUploadComponent httpupload
sudo mv httpupload /usr/local/share
cd /usr/local/share/httpupload

install dependencies

sudo pip3 install -r requirements.txt

create config

cp config.example.yml config.yml

Open the config file with your favourite editor and change to your needs.

component_jid: upload.your.domain  # the name of your component, must be unique.
component_secret: 1234 # the password that will authenticate the component against your xmpp server.
component_port: 5347 # leave the default.
storage_path : /var/lib/httpupload # make sure the user that will run this script has write permissions.

whitelist: # allow uploads for your domain only.
  - your.domain

http_address: 127.0.0.1
http_port: 8080

get_url : https://upload.your.domain/get
put_url : https://upload.your.domain/put

After that create the required directory structure:

sudo mkdir /var/lib/httpupload
sudo chown www-data:www-data

configure prosody

You have to tell your xmpp server (in my case prosody) about the component. Open /etc/prosody/prosody.cfg.lua and add:

Component "upload.your.domain"
  component_secret = "1234"

Component name and secret MUST match what you have inside your config.yml.
Restart prosody with sudo prosodyctl restart to enable the component.

test it

At this point you should be able to start the server with:

./httpupload/server.py

Make sure the component authenticates against your xmpp server, it should look similar to this:

DEBUG    Expire run finished in 0.000019s
DEBUG    Loaded Plugin: XEP-0030: Service Discovery
DEBUG    Loaded Plugin: upload files via http
DEBUG    Connecting to localhost:5347
DEBUG    DNS: Querying localhost for AAAA records.
DEBUG    DNS: Error retreiving AAAA address info for localhost.
DEBUG    DNS: Querying localhost for A records.
DEBUG    Connecting to [::1]:5347
DEBUG    Event triggered: connected
DEBUG     ==== TRANSITION disconnected -> connected
DEBUG    Starting HANDLER THREAD

Also check prosodys logfile:

cat /var/log/prosody/prosody.log
upload.your.domain:component      info    External component successfully authenticated

If everything works kill the server with CTRL+C.

nginx configuration

We will use nginx to serve the files from get and use put to proxy our requests to httpuploadcomponent.
I assume you have nginx installed and have a valid certificate.

For recommended tls setting you can use mozillas tls config generator.

# serving the files
location /get {
	alias /var/lib/httpupload;
}

# proxy put to the component
location /put {
	limit_except GET {
		proxy_pass       http://[::]:8080;
        }

        proxy_set_header Host	$host;
        charset          	utf-8;
        add_header       	X-Frame-Options           DENY;
}

automatic startup

The startup scripts below are taken from the contrib directory and are slightly modified.

systemd

Create a new unit file:

sudo nano /lib/system/systemd/httpupload.service

[Unit]
Description=XMPP component for HTTP file uploads
After=network.target

[Service]
type=simple
User=www-data
Group=www-data
ExecStart=/usr/bin/python3 /usr/local/src/httpupload/httpupload/server.py --config /usr/local/src/httpupload/httpupload/config.yml

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Enable and start the unit:

sudo systemctl enable httpupload.service
sudo systemctl start httpupload.service

sysvinit

Create the sysvinit file:

sudo nano /etc/init.d/httpupload

#!/bin/bash
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          HttpUploadComponent
# Required-Start:    prosody
# Required-Stop:     prosody
# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:      0 1 6
# Short-Description: Start HttpUploadComponent
# Description:       HttpUploadComponent for prosody
### END INIT INFO
## more info: http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts

. /lib/lsb/init-functions

PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin
DAEMON=/usr/local/src/httpupload/httpupload/server.py
NAME=httpuploadcomponent
DESC=HttpUploadComponent
CONFIG=/usr/local/src/httpupload/httpupload/config.yml
LOGFILE=/var/log/nginx/httpuploadcomponent.log
PIDFILE=/var/run/${NAME}.pid
USER=www-data

# Allow user to override default values listed above
[ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME

export LOGNAME=$USER

test -x $DAEMON || exit 0

set -e

function _start() {
    start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --chuid $USER:$USER --background --make-pidfile --exec $DAEMON -- --config $CONFIG --logfile $LOGFILE
}

function _stop() {
    start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --oknodo --retry 3
    rm -f $PIDFILE
}

function _status() {
    start-stop-daemon --status --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE
    return $?
}


case "$1" in
        start)
                echo -n "Starting $DESC: "
                _start
                echo "ok"
                ;;
        stop)
                echo -n "Stopping $DESC: "
                _stop
                echo "ok"
                ;;
        restart|force-reload)
                echo -n "Restarting $DESC: "
                _stop
                sleep 1
                _start
                echo "ok"
                ;;
        status)
                echo -n "Status of $DESC: "
                _status && echo "running" || echo "stopped"
                ;;
        *)
                N=/etc/init.d/$NAME
                echo "Usage: $N {start|stop|restart|force-reload|status}" >&2
                exit 1
                ;;
esac

exit 0

Enable and start the sysvinit script:

sudo chmod +x etc/init.d/httpupload
sudo update-rc.d httpupload defaults
sudo service httpupload start

---

If you have problems with the instructions above you might want to check out prosodys mod_http_upload which provides most of the functionality of httpuploadcomponent but should be easier to install.