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Explore a local store in your browser

The RefgetStore Explorer is a web app for browsing a store's sequences, collections, aliases, and FHR metadata. It runs entirely in the browser — it reads a store's static files directly over HTTP, with no application server behind it.

The refget store explore command lets you point that Explorer at a store on your own machine. It serves both the store's files and the Explorer web UI from a single local web server and opens your browser to it:

refget store explore /path/to/refget-store

This starts a server on http://127.0.0.1:8080 and opens the Explorer pointed at your store. Press Ctrl-C to stop it.

When to use it

Because the Explorer only needs static files, it works against a store anywhere — an S3 bucket, an HTTP server, or a directory on disk. The hosted Explorer at refgenie.org already covers stores reachable from the public internet. refget store explore covers the cases it can't:

  • A store on local disk. Browsers can't fetch() file:// URLs, so a store in a local directory needs a local web server to browse it.
  • A read-only mount, such as a CVMFS distribution of a reference store on a shared cluster.
  • An air-gapped or offline machine, where the hosted Explorer is unreachable. The command bundles the Explorer web UI, so it needs no internet access.

Options

Option Description
PATH Store directory to explore (falls back to your configured store path).
--host Interface to bind (default 127.0.0.1).
--port, -P Port to serve on (default 8080; auto-increments if busy).
--no-browser Print the URLs instead of opening a browser.
--store-only Serve only the store files, skipping the bundled UI — useful when hosting your own front end.
--frontend-dir Serve a custom Explorer build from this directory.

The command exposes read-only GET/HEAD access to the store's files. To modify a store, use refget store add, pull, and alias.

Serving on a shared server

To let others on your network reach a store hosted on a cluster login node, bind a public interface and skip opening a local browser:

refget store explore /cvmfs/data.example.org/refget-store --host 0.0.0.0 --no-browser

Then share the printed Explorer URL. See What is RefgetStore? for background on the store format and its local/remote symmetry.