tahoe-lafs/docs/configuration.rst

Configuring a Tahoe node

1. Overall Node Configuration
2. Client Configuration
3. Storage Server Configuration
4. Running A Helper
5. Running An Introducer
6. Other Files in BASEDIR
7. Other files
8. Backwards Compatibility Files
9. Example

A Tahoe node is configured by writing to files in its base directory. These files are read by the node when it starts, so each time you change them, you need to restart the node.

The node also writes state to its base directory, so it will create files on its own.

This document contains a complete list of the config files that are examined by the client node, as well as the state files that you'll observe in its base directory.

The main file is named 'tahoe.cfg', which is an ".INI"-style configuration file (parsed by the Python stdlib 'ConfigParser' module: "[name]" section markers, lines with "key.subkey: value", rfc822-style continuations). There are other files that contain information which does not easily fit into this format. The 'tahoe create-node' or 'tahoe create-client' command will create an initial tahoe.cfg file for you. After creation, the node will never modify the 'tahoe.cfg' file: all persistent state is put in other files.

The item descriptions below use the following types:

boolean

one of (True, yes, on, 1, False, off, no, 0), case-insensitive

strports string

a Twisted listening-port specification string, like "tcp:80" or "tcp:3456:interface=127.0.0.1". For a full description of the format, see http://twistedmatrix.com/documents/current/api/twisted.application.strports.html

FURL string

a Foolscap endpoint identifier, like pb://soklj4y7eok5c3xkmjeqpw@192.168.69.247:44801/eqpwqtzm

Overall Node Configuration

This section controls the network behavior of the node overall: which ports and IP addresses are used, when connections are timed out, etc. This configuration is independent of the services that the node is offering: the same controls are used for client and introducer nodes.

If your node is behind a firewall or NAT device and you want other clients to connect to it, you'll need to open a port in the firewall or NAT, and specify that port number in the tub.port option. If behind a NAT, you may need to set the tub.location option described below.

[node]

nickname = (UTF-8 string, optional)

  This value will be displayed in management tools as this node's
  "nickname". If not provided, the nickname will be set to "<unspecified>".
  This string shall be a UTF-8 encoded unicode string.

web.port = (strports string, optional)

  This controls where the node's webserver should listen, providing
  filesystem access and node status as defined in webapi.txt . This file
  contains a Twisted "strports" specification such as "3456" or
  "tcp:3456:interface=127.0.0.1". The 'tahoe create-node' or 'tahoe
  create-client' commands set the web.port to
  "tcp:3456:interface=127.0.0.1" by default; this is overridable by the
  "--webport" option. You can make it use SSL by writing
  "ssl:3456:privateKey=mykey.pem:certKey=cert.pem" instead.

  If this is not provided, the node will not run a web server.

web.static = (string, optional)

  This controls where the /static portion of the URL space is served. The
  value is a directory name (~username is allowed, and non-absolute names
  are interpreted relative to the node's basedir) which can contain HTML
  and other files. This can be used to serve a javascript-based frontend to
  the Tahoe node, or other services.

  The default value is "public_html", which will serve $BASEDIR/public_html .
  With the default settings, http://127.0.0.1:3456/static/foo.html will
  serve the contents of $BASEDIR/public_html/foo.html .

tub.port = (integer, optional)

  This controls which port the node uses to accept Foolscap connections
  from other nodes. If not provided, the node will ask the kernel for any
  available port. The port will be written to a separate file (named
  client.port or introducer.port), so that subsequent runs will re-use the
  same port.

tub.location = (string, optional)

  In addition to running as a client, each Tahoe node also runs as a
  server, listening for connections from other Tahoe clients. The node
  announces its location by publishing a "FURL" (a string with some
  connection hints) to the Introducer. The string it publishes can be found
  in $BASEDIR/private/storage.furl . The "tub.location" configuration
  controls what location is published in this announcement.

  If you don't provide tub.location, the node will try to figure out a
  useful one by itself, by using tools like 'ifconfig' to determine the set
  of IP addresses on which it can be reached from nodes both near and far.
  It will also include the TCP port number on which it is listening (either
  the one specified by tub.port, or whichever port was assigned by the
  kernel when tub.port is left unspecified).

  You might want to override this value if your node lives behind a
  firewall that is doing inbound port forwarding, or if you are using other
  proxies such that the local IP address or port number is not the same one
  that remote clients should use to connect. You might also want to control
  this when using a Tor proxy to avoid revealing your actual IP address
  through the Introducer announcement.

  The value is a comma-separated string of host:port location hints, like
  this:

    123.45.67.89:8098,tahoe.example.com:8098,127.0.0.1:8098

  A few examples:

    Emulate default behavior, assuming your host has IP address
    123.45.67.89 and the kernel-allocated port number was 8098:

      tub.port = 8098
      tub.location = 123.45.67.89:8098,127.0.0.1:8098

    Use a DNS name so you can change the IP address more easily:

      tub.port = 8098
      tub.location = tahoe.example.com:8098

    Run a node behind a firewall (which has an external IP address) that
    has been configured to forward port 7912 to our internal node's port
    8098:

      tub.port = 8098
      tub.location = external-firewall.example.com:7912

    Run a node behind a Tor proxy (perhaps via torsocks), in client-only
    mode (i.e. we can make outbound connections, but other nodes will not
    be able to connect to us). The literal 'unreachable.example.org' will
    not resolve, but will serve as a reminder to human observers that this
    node cannot be reached. "Don't call us.. we'll call you":

      tub.port = 8098
      tub.location = unreachable.example.org:0

    Run a node behind a Tor proxy, and make the server available as a Tor
    "hidden service". (this assumes that other clients are running their
    node with torsocks, such that they are prepared to connect to a .onion
    address). The hidden service must first be configured in Tor, by giving
    it a local port number and then obtaining a .onion name, using
    something in the torrc file like:

      HiddenServiceDir /var/lib/tor/hidden_services/tahoe
      HiddenServicePort 29212 127.0.0.1:8098

    once Tor is restarted, the .onion hostname will be in
    /var/lib/tor/hidden_services/tahoe/hostname . Then set up your
    tahoe.cfg like:

      tub.port = 8098
      tub.location = ualhejtq2p7ohfbb.onion:29212

  Most users will not need to set tub.location .

  Note that the old 'advertised_ip_addresses' file from earlier releases is
  no longer supported. Tahoe 1.3.0 and later will ignore this file.

log_gatherer.furl = (FURL, optional)

  If provided, this contains a single FURL string which is used to contact
  a 'log gatherer', which will be granted access to the logport. This can
  be used by centralized storage meshes to gather operational logs in a
  single place. Note that when an old-style BASEDIR/log_gatherer.furl file
  exists (see 'Backwards Compatibility Files', below), both are used. (for
  most other items, the separate config file overrides the entry in
  tahoe.cfg)

timeout.keepalive = (integer in seconds, optional)
timeout.disconnect = (integer in seconds, optional)

  If timeout.keepalive is provided, it is treated as an integral number of
  seconds, and sets the Foolscap "keepalive timer" to that value. For each
  connection to another node, if nothing has been heard for a while, we
  will attempt to provoke the other end into saying something. The duration
  of silence that passes before sending the PING will be between KT and
  2*KT. This is mainly intended to keep NAT boxes from expiring idle TCP
  sessions, but also gives TCP's long-duration keepalive/disconnect timers
  some traffic to work with. The default value is 240 (i.e. 4 minutes).

  If timeout.disconnect is provided, this is treated as an integral number
  of seconds, and sets the Foolscap "disconnect timer" to that value. For
  each connection to another node, if nothing has been heard for a while,
  we will drop the connection. The duration of silence that passes before
  dropping the connection will be between DT-2*KT and 2*DT+2*KT (please see
  ticket #521 for more details). If we are sending a large amount of data
  to the other end (which takes more than DT-2*KT to deliver), we might
  incorrectly drop the connection. The default behavior (when this value is
  not provided) is to disable the disconnect timer.

  See ticket #521 for a discussion of how to pick these timeout values.
  Using 30 minutes means we'll disconnect after 22 to 68 minutes of
  inactivity. Receiving data will reset this timeout, however if we have
  more than 22min of data in the outbound queue (such as 800kB in two
  pipelined segments of 10 shares each) and the far end has no need to
  contact us, our ping might be delayed, so we may disconnect them by
  accident.

ssh.port = (strports string, optional)
ssh.authorized_keys_file = (filename, optional)

  This enables an SSH-based interactive Python shell, which can be used to
  inspect the internal state of the node, for debugging. To cause the node
  to accept SSH connections on port 8022 from the same keys as the rest of
  your account, use:

    [tub]
    ssh.port = 8022
    ssh.authorized_keys_file = ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

tempdir = (string, optional)

  This specifies a temporary directory for the webapi server to use, for
  holding large files while they are being uploaded. If a webapi client
  attempts to upload a 10GB file, this tempdir will need to have at least
  10GB available for the upload to complete.

  The default value is the "tmp" directory in the node's base directory
  (i.e. $NODEDIR/tmp), but it can be placed elsewhere. This directory is
  used for files that usually (on a unix system) go into /tmp . The string
  will be interpreted relative to the node's base directory.

Client Configuration

[client]
introducer.furl = (FURL string, mandatory)

  This FURL tells the client how to connect to the introducer. Each Tahoe
  grid is defined by an introducer. The introducer's furl is created by the
  introducer node and written into its base directory when it starts,
  whereupon it should be published to everyone who wishes to attach a
  client to that grid

helper.furl = (FURL string, optional)

  If provided, the node will attempt to connect to and use the given helper
  for uploads. See docs/helper.txt for details.

key_generator.furl = (FURL string, optional)

  If provided, the node will attempt to connect to and use the given
  key-generator service, using RSA keys from the external process rather
  than generating its own.

stats_gatherer.furl = (FURL string, optional)

  If provided, the node will connect to the given stats gatherer and
  provide it with operational statistics.

shares.needed = (int, optional) aka "k", default 3
shares.total = (int, optional) aka "N", N >= k, default 10
shares.happy = (int, optional) 1 <= happy <= N, default 7

  These three values set the default encoding parameters. Each time a new
  file is uploaded, erasure-coding is used to break the ciphertext into
  separate pieces. There will be "N" (i.e. shares.total) pieces created,
  and the file will be recoverable if any "k" (i.e. shares.needed) pieces
  are retrieved. The default values are 3-of-10 (i.e. shares.needed = 3,
  shares.total = 10). Setting k to 1 is equivalent to simple replication
  (uploading N copies of the file).

  These values control the tradeoff between storage overhead, performance,
  and reliability. To a first approximation, a 1MB file will use (1MB*N/k)
  of backend storage space (the actual value will be a bit more, because of
  other forms of overhead). Up to N-k shares can be lost before the file
  becomes unrecoverable, so assuming there are at least N servers, up to
  N-k servers can be offline without losing the file. So large N/k ratios
  are more reliable, and small N/k ratios use less disk space. Clearly, k
  must never be smaller than N.

  Large values of N will slow down upload operations slightly, since more
  servers must be involved, and will slightly increase storage overhead due
  to the hash trees that are created. Large values of k will cause
  downloads to be marginally slower, because more servers must be involved.
  N cannot be larger than 256, because of the 8-bit erasure-coding
  algorithm that Tahoe uses.

  shares.happy allows you control over the distribution of your immutable
  file. For a successful upload, shares are guaranteed to be initially
  placed on at least 'shares.happy' distinct servers, the correct
  functioning of any k of which is sufficient to guarantee the availability
  of the uploaded file. This value should not be larger than the number of
  servers on your grid.

  A value of shares.happy <= k is allowed, but does not provide any
  redundancy if some servers fail or lose shares.

  (Mutable files use a different share placement algorithm that does not
  consider this parameter.)

Storage Server Configuration

[storage]
enabled = (boolean, optional)

  If this is True, the node will run a storage server, offering space to
  other clients. If it is False, the node will not run a storage server,
  meaning that no shares will be stored on this node. Use False this for
  clients who do not wish to provide storage service. The default value is
  True.

readonly = (boolean, optional)

  If True, the node will run a storage server but will not accept any
  shares, making it effectively read-only. Use this for storage servers
  which are being decommissioned: the storage/ directory could be mounted
  read-only, while shares are moved to other servers. Note that this
  currently only affects immutable shares. Mutable shares (used for
  directories) will be written and modified anyway. See ticket #390 for the
  current status of this bug. The default value is False.

reserved_space = (str, optional)

  If provided, this value defines how much disk space is reserved: the
  storage server will not accept any share which causes the amount of free
  disk space to drop below this value. (The free space is measured by a
  call to statvfs(2) on Unix, or GetDiskFreeSpaceEx on Windows, and is the
  space available to the user account under which the storage server runs.)

  This string contains a number, with an optional case-insensitive scale
  suffix like "K" or "M" or "G", and an optional "B" or "iB" suffix. So
  "100MB", "100M", "100000000B", "100000000", and "100000kb" all mean the
  same thing. Likewise, "1MiB", "1024KiB", and "1048576B" all mean the same
  thing.

expire.enabled =
expire.mode =
expire.override_lease_duration =
expire.cutoff_date =
expire.immutable =
expire.mutable =

  These settings control garbage-collection, in which the server will
  delete shares that no longer have an up-to-date lease on them. Please see
  the neighboring "garbage-collection.rst" document for full details.

Running A Helper

A "helper" is a regular client node that also offers the "upload helper" service.

[helper]
enabled = (boolean, optional)

  If True, the node will run a helper (see docs/helper.txt for details).
  The helper's contact FURL will be placed in private/helper.furl, from
  which it can be copied to any clients which wish to use it. Clearly nodes
  should not both run a helper and attempt to use one: do not create both
  helper.furl and run_helper in the same node. The default is False.

Running An Introducer

The introducer node uses a different '.tac' file (named introducer.tac), and pays attention to the "[node]" section, but not the others.

The Introducer node maintains some different state than regular client nodes.

BASEDIR/introducer.furl : This is generated the first time the introducer node is started, and used again on subsequent runs, to give the introduction service a persistent long-term identity. This file should be published and copied into new client nodes before they are started for the first time.

Other Files in BASEDIR

Some configuration is not kept in tahoe.cfg, for the following reasons:

• it is generated by the node at startup, e.g. encryption keys. The node never writes to tahoe.cfg
• it is generated by user action, e.g. the 'tahoe create-alias' command

In addition, non-configuration persistent state is kept in the node's base directory, next to the configuration knobs.

This section describes these other files.

private/node.pem

This contains an SSL private-key certificate. The node generates this the first time it is started, and re-uses it on subsequent runs. This certificate allows the node to have a cryptographically-strong identifier (the Foolscap "TubID"), and to establish secure connections to other nodes.

storage/

Nodes which host StorageServers will create this directory to hold shares of files on behalf of other clients. There will be a directory underneath it for each StorageIndex for which this node is holding shares. There is also an "incoming" directory where partially-completed shares are held while they are being received.

client.tac

this file defines the client, by constructing the actual Client instance each time the node is started. It is used by the 'twistd' daemonization program (in the "-y" mode), which is run internally by the "tahoe start" command. This file is created by the "tahoe create-node" or "tahoe create-client" commands.

private/control.furl

this file contains a FURL that provides access to a control port on the client node, from which files can be uploaded and downloaded. This file is created with permissions that prevent anyone else from reading it (on operating systems that support such a concept), to insure that only the owner of the client node can use this feature. This port is intended for debugging and testing use.

private/logport.furl

this file contains a FURL that provides access to a 'log port' on the client node, from which operational logs can be retrieved. Do not grant logport access to strangers, because occasionally secret information may be placed in the logs.

private/helper.furl

if the node is running a helper (for use by other clients), its contact FURL will be placed here. See docs/helper.txt for more details.

private/root_dir.cap (optional)

The command-line tools will read a directory cap out of this file and use it, if you don't specify a '--dir-cap' option or if you specify '--dir-cap=root'.

private/convergence (automatically generated)

An added secret for encrypting immutable files. Everyone who has this same string in their private/convergence file encrypts their immutable files in the same way when uploading them. This causes identical files to "converge" -- to share the same storage space since they have identical ciphertext --which conserves space and optimizes upload time, but it also exposes files to the possibility of a brute-force attack by people who know that string. In this attack, if the attacker can guess most of the contents of a file, then they can use brute-force to learn the remaining contents.

So the set of people who know your private/convergence string is the set of people who converge their storage space with you when you and they upload identical immutable files, and it is also the set of people who could mount such an attack.

The content of the private/convergence file is a base-32 encoded string. If the file doesn't exist, then when the Tahoe client starts up it will generate a random 256-bit string and write the base-32 encoding of this string into the file. If you want to converge your immutable files with as many people as possible, put the empty string (so that private/convergence is a zero-length file).

Other files

logs/

Each Tahoe node creates a directory to hold the log messages produced as the node runs. These logfiles are created and rotated by the "twistd" daemonization program, so logs/twistd.log will contain the most recent messages, logs/twistd.log.1 will contain the previous ones, logs/twistd.log.2 will be older still, and so on. twistd rotates logfiles after they grow beyond 1MB in size. If the space consumed by logfiles becomes troublesome, they should be pruned: a cron job to delete all files that were created more than a month ago in this logs/ directory should be sufficient.

my_nodeid

this is written by all nodes after startup, and contains a base32-encoded (i.e. human-readable) NodeID that identifies this specific node. This NodeID is the same string that gets displayed on the web page (in the "which peers am I connected to" list), and the shortened form (the first characters) is recorded in various log messages.

Backwards Compatibility Files

Tahoe releases before 1.3.0 had no 'tahoe.cfg' file, and used distinct files for each item listed below. For each configuration knob, if the distinct file exists, it will take precedence over the corresponding item in tahoe.cfg.

Config setting	File	Comment
[node]nickname [node]web.port	BASEDIR/nickname BASEDIR/webport
[node]tub.port	BASEDIR/client.port	(for Clients, not Introducers)
[node]tub.port [node]tub.location	BASEDIR/introducer.port BASEDIR/advertised_ip_addresses	(for Introducers, not Clients) (note that, unlike other keys, tahoe.cfg overrides this file)
[node]log_gatherer.furl [node]timeout.keepalive [node]timeout.disconnect [client]introducer.furl [client]helper.furl [client]key_generator.furl [client]stats_gatherer.furl	BASEDIR/log_gatherer.furl BASEDIR/keepalive_timeout BASEDIR/disconnect_timeout BASEDIR/introducer.furl BASEDIR/helper.furl BASEDIR/key_generator.furl BASEDIR/stats_gatherer.furl	(one per line)
[storage]enabled	BASEDIR/no_storage	(False if no_storage exists)
[storage]readonly [storage]sizelimit [storage]debug_discard	BASEDIR/readonly_storage BASEDIR/sizelimit BASEDIR/debug_discard_storage	(True if readonly_storage exists)
[helper]enabled	BASEDIR/run_helper	(True if run_helper exists)

Note: the functionality of [node]ssh.port and [node]ssh.authorized_keys_file were previously combined, controlled by the presence of a BASEDIR/authorized_keys.SSHPORT file, in which the suffix of the filename indicated which port the ssh server should listen on, and the contents of the file provided the ssh public keys to accept. Support for these files has been removed completely. To ssh into your Tahoe node, add [node]ssh.port and [node].ssh_authorized_keys_file statements to your tahoe.cfg.

Likewise, the functionality of [node]tub.location is a variant of the now-unsupported BASEDIR/advertised_ip_addresses . The old file was additive (the addresses specified in advertised_ip_addresses were used in addition to any that were automatically discovered), whereas the new tahoe.cfg directive is not (tub.location is used verbatim).

Example

The following is a sample tahoe.cfg file, containing values for all keys described above. Note that this is not a recommended configuration (most of these are not the default values), merely a legal one.

[node]
nickname = Bob's Tahoe Node
tub.port = 34912
tub.location = 123.45.67.89:8098,44.55.66.77:8098
web.port = 3456
log_gatherer.furl = pb://soklj4y7eok5c3xkmjeqpw@192.168.69.247:44801/eqpwqtzm
timeout.keepalive = 240
timeout.disconnect = 1800
ssh.port = 8022
ssh.authorized_keys_file = ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

[client]
introducer.furl = pb://ok45ssoklj4y7eok5c3xkmj@tahoe.example:44801/ii3uumo
helper.furl = pb://ggti5ssoklj4y7eok5c3xkmj@helper.tahoe.example:7054/kk8lhr

[storage]
enabled = True
readonly_storage = True
sizelimit = 10000000000

[helper]
run_helper = True