Welcome to the Allmydata-Tahoe project. This project implements a secure, distributed, fault-tolerant storage grid. All of the source code is available under a Free Software licence. The basic idea is that the data in this storage grid is spread over all participating nodes, using an algorithm that can recover the data even if a majority of the nodes are no longer available. The interface to the storage grid allows you to store and fetch files, either by self-authenticating cryptographic identifier or by filename and path. See the web site for all kinds of information, news, and community contributions, and prebuilt packages for Debian-like systems: http://allmydata.org LICENCE: This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version, with the added permission that, if you become obligated to release a derived work under this licence (as per section 2.b), you may delay the fulfillment of this obligation for up to 12 months. If you are obligated to release code under section 2.b of this licence, you are obligated to release it under these same terms, including the 12-month grace period clause. See the COPYING file for details. GETTING PRECOMPILED BINARIES FOR DEBIAN-LIKE SYSTEMS: Pre-compiled binaries are available for Debian or Ubuntu. Please see the following web page for instructions: http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe/wiki/DownloadDebianPackages DEPENDENCIES: If you aren't getting a pre-compiled binary, then you'll have to ensure that the following packages are installed before you install Tahoe. Note: All of the following dependencies can probably be installed through your standard package management tool if you are running on a modern Unix operating system. For example, on an debian-like system, you can do "sudo apt-get install gcc make python-dev python-twisted python-pyopenssl". + a C compiler (language) + GNU make (build tool) + Python 2.4 or newer (tested against 2.4, and 2.5.1 ), including development headers (language) http://python.org/ + Twisted Python (tested against 2.2.0, 2.4.0, and 2.5.0) (network and operating system integration library) http://twistedmatrix.com/ You need the following subpackages, which are included in the default Twisted distribution: * core (the standard Twisted package) * web, trial, conch Twisted requires zope.interface, a copy of which is included in the Twisted distribution. Note that Twisted does *not* require the entire Zope distribution, merely the much smaller zope.interface component. zope.interface is easy_install-able, so if you have Python and easy_install installed then you can install zope.interface by running "easy_install zope.interface". + Python PyOpenSSL (0.6 or later) (secure transport layer) http://pyopenssl.sourceforge.net To install PyOpenSSL on Windows-native, download this: http://allmydata.org/source/pyOpenSSL-0.6.win32-py2.5.exe or for Python 2.4, this: http://allmydata.org/source/pyOpenSSL-0.6.win32-py2.4.exe To install PyOpenSSL on Windows-cygwin, install the OpenSSL development libraries with the cygwin package management tool, then get the pyOpenSSL source code, cd into it, and run "python ./setup.py install". + the pywin32 package: required only on Windows http://sourceforge.net/projects/pywin32/ (Tested with build 210, and known to not work with build 204. Feedback with details of other builds is greatly appreciated.) In addition, the following Python packages are required, but they will normally be automatically installed as a side effect of installing Tahoe. + Python setuptools (build and distribution tool) Note: The build process will automatically download and install setuptools if it is not present. However, if an old, incompatible version of setuptools is present (< v0.6c6 on Cygwin, or < v0.6a9 on other platforms), then the build will fail. So if the build fails due to your current version of setuptools being incompatible, you can either upgrade or uninstall your version of setuptools and try again. http://peak.telecommunity.com/DevCenter/EasyInstall#installation-instructions + zfec (erasure coding library) http://cheeseshop.python.org/pypi/zfec zfec is packaged in a setuptools-compatible way and included in the Python Package Index (PyPI), so it will be automatically installed when you install Tahoe (see INSTALLING). It can be manually installed by running "easy_install zfec". + Python foolscap (secure remote object library) http://cheeseshop.python.org/pypi/foolscap foolscape is packaged in a setuptools-compatible way and included in the Python Package Index (PyPI), so it will be automatically installed when you install Tahoe (see INSTALLING). It can be manually installed by running "easy_install foolscap". + Python simplejson (JSON parser) http://cheeseshop.python.org/pypi/simplejson simplejson is packaged in a setuptools-compatible way and included in the Python Package Index (PyPI), so it will be automatically installed when you install Tahoe (see INSTALLING). It can be manually installed by running "easy_install simplejson". + Python Nevow (0.6.0 or later) (web presentation language) http://divmod.org/trac/wiki/DivmodNevow Note that the current version of Nevow (0.9.18) requires Twisted 2.4.0 or later. Nevow is packaged in a setuptools-compatible way and included in the Python Package Index (PyPI), so it will be automatically installed when you install Tahoe (see INSTALLING). It can be manually installed by running "easy_install nevow". GETTING THE SOURCE CODE: You need the source code if you are going to install The Debian Way, The Setuptools Way, or The Running-In-Place Way (see below). You do not need the source code if you are getting precompiled binaries for Debian or Ubuntu (see above), or if you are going to install The easy_install Way (see below). The code is available via darcs by running the following command: darcs get http://allmydata.org/source/tahoe/trunk tahoe This will create a directory named "tahoe" in the current working directory and put a copy of the latest source code into it. Later, if you want to get any new changes, then cd into that directory and run the command "darcs pull". Tarballs of sources are available at: http://allmydata.org/source/tahoe/ INSTALLING: There are four ways to do it: The Setuptools Way, The easy_install Way, The Running-In-Place Way, and The Debian Way. Choose one: The Setuptools Way: Get the source code (see above). Run 'python setup.py install'. This will compile and install the Tahoe code to the standard location for your operating system (on unix, that is somewhere inside /usr/lib/). It will also acquire and install the easy_install-able dependencies (zfec, foolscap, simplejson, and nevow) to the same place. To install it to a non-standard location, learn about setuptools's "--single-version-externally-managed" flag, and visit http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe/wiki/SetuptoolsAndGNUStow . The easy_install Way: You don't need to download the source code first. Tahoe is registered with the Python Package Index (PyPI), so the 'easy_install' tool can download and install it for you. Just type 'easy_install allmydata-tahoe' from any shell. That will download the most recent Tahoe source tarball, unpack it in a temporary directory, install it to the standard location, then download and install any easy_install-able dependencies that you need (zfec, foolscap, simplejson, and nevow). (This will work only if you already have the other -- non-easy_install-able -- dependencies.) The Running-In-Place Way: Get the source code (see above). You can use Tahoe without installing it. Build it by running "make". Once you've built it then you can execute "./bin/allmydata-tahoe". (When the allmydata-tahoe script is in an Tahoe source distribution, it adds the necessary directory to the Python "sys.path".) If you do not already have installed the easy_install-able dependencies (zfec, foolscap, simplejson, and nevow) then you can install them into a local subdirectory of the Tahoe source distribution by executing "make build-deps". (The allmydata-tahoe script will discover them and add them to the "sys.path".) The Debian Way: The Debian Way is to build .deb files which you can then install with "dpkg". This requires certain debian packages (build-essential, fakeroot, devscripts, debhelper, cdbs) to be installed first, since they are used to construct the tahoe .deb files. A full list of these required packages can be found in the "Build-Depends" line in the misc/DIST/debian/control in the top-level tahoe directory (replacing the word DIST with etch, dapper, edgy, or feisty as appropriate). Get the source code (see above). If you're running on a debian system, run 'make deb-etch', 'make deb-sid', 'make deb-edgy', or 'make deb-feisty' from within the tahoe top-level directory to construct a debian package named 'allmydata-tahoe' which you can then install with dpkg. TESTING THAT IT IS PROPERLY INSTALLED 'make test' runs the unit test suites. (This can take a long time on slow computers. There are a lot of tests and some of them do a lot of public-key cryptography.) If all tests pass, then you have all the dependencies installed, either because they are installed into your system or because they are installed into a local subdirectory because you ran "make build-deps" (see "The Running-In-Place Way", above). Executing the allmydata-tahoe script from the "bin" subdirectory will work only if Tahoe itself is installed, either because it is installed into the local subdirectory (as per "The Running-In-Place Way") or because it is installed into your system (as per the other three ways of installing). RUNNING: Run the "allmydata-tahoe" executable. If you installed "The Running-In-Place Way", then it is in your source tree, in the "bin" subdirectory thereof. If you installed in one of the other three ways, then it has been installed into your operating system's filesystem, perhaps in "/usr/bin" on Unix, or in "C:\Python25\Scripts" on Window. The "allmydata-tahoe" utility is used to create, start, and stop nodes. Each node lives in a separate base directory, inside of which you can add files to configure and control the node. Nodes also read and write files within that directory. A grid consists of a single central 'introducer and vdrive' node and one or more 'client' nodes. If you are joining an existing grid, the introducer-and-vdrive node will already be running, and you'll just need to create a client node. If you're creating a brand new grid, you'll need to create both an introducer-and-vdrive and a client (and then invite other people to create their own client nodes and join your grid). The introducer (-and-vdrive) node is constructed by running 'allmydata-tahoe create-introducer --basedir $HERE'. Once constructed, you can start the introducer by running 'allmydata-tahoe start --basedir $HERE' (or, if you are already in the introducer's base directory, just type 'allmydata-tahoe start'). Inside that base directory, there will be a pair of files 'introducer.furl' and 'vdrive.furl'. Make a copy of these, as they'll be needed on the client nodes. To construct a client node, pick a new working directory for it, then run 'allmydata-tahoe create-client --basedir $HERE'. Copy the two .furl files from the introducer into this new directory, then run 'allmydata-tahoe start --basedir $HERE'. After that, the client node should be off and running. The first thing it will do is connect to the introducer and introduce itself to all other nodes on the grid. You can follow its progress by looking at the $HERE/logs/twistd.log file. To actually use the client, enable the web interface by writing a port number (like "8123") into a file named $HERE/webport and then restarting the node with 'allmydata-tahoe restart --basedir $HERE'. This will prompt the client node to run a webserver on the desired port, through which you can view, upload, download, and delete files. This 'webport' file is actually a "strports specification", defined in http://twistedmatrix.com/documents/current/api/twisted.application.strports.html , so you can have it only listen on a local interface by writing "tcp:8123:interface=127.0.0.1" to this file, or make it use SSL by writing "ssl:8123:privateKey=mykey.pem:certKey=cert.pem" instead. A client node directory can also be created without installing the code first. Just use 'make create-client', and a new directory named 'CLIENTDIR' will be created inside the top of the source tree. Copy the relevant .furl files in, set the webport, then start the node by using 'make start-client'. To stop it again, use 'make stop-client'. Similar makefile targets exist for making and running an introducer node. If you are behind a firewall and you can configure your firewall to forward TCP connections on a port to the computer running your Tahoe node, then you can configure the Tahoe node to announce itself as being available on that IP address and port. The way to do this is to create a file named $HERE/advertised_ip_addresses, in which you can put IP addresses and port numbers in "dotted-quad:port" form, e.g. "209.97.232.113:1345". You can put multiple IP-address-and-port-number entries into this file, on separate lines. There is a public grid available for testing. See http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe/wiki/TestGrid for the necessary .furl files.