rust-file

rust-file is a small Rust command-line archive tool. It packs the files in a directory into a custom archive format, compresses the archive with zstd, and encrypts it with XChaCha20-Poly1305 using a key derived from your password with Argon2.

It also includes simple TCP send/receive commands and UDP discovery helpers for finding a receiver on the local network.

Status

This is an experimental project. Be careful with real data.

Important: encrypt --dir <directory_path> deletes the source directory after it writes the encrypted archive.

Build

cargo build

For an optimized binary:

cargo build --release

Run tests and lints:

cargo test
cargo clippy --all-targets --all-features

Usage

Show help by running the binary without a valid command:

cargo run --

Encrypt a directory

cargo run -- encrypt --dir <directory_path>

The program asks for:

• a password
• a zstd compression level from -7 to 22

It writes an archive named like:

mole_<uuid>.bin

After writing the archive, the source directory is removed.

Decrypt an archive

cargo run -- decrypt <archive_path> [output_directory]

If output_directory is omitted, files are restored into the current directory.

Send an encrypted archive over TCP

The sender can send the encrypted archive after creating it:

cargo run -- encrypt --dir <directory_path> --send <host:port>

Example:

cargo run -- encrypt --dir ./secret --send 192.168.1.20:9000

Receive an archive over TCP

On the receiving machine:

cargo run -- receive <host:port>

Example:

cargo run -- receive 0.0.0.0:9000

The received bytes are written to a generated mole_*.bin archive file.

Receiver discovery

Discovery uses UDP port 9001.

On the receiver, advertise a file name and the TCP address where it can receive:

cargo run -- serve-discovery <file_name> <host:port>

Example:

cargo run -- serve-discovery backup.bin 192.168.1.20:9000

On another machine, search for that receiver:

cargo run -- find-receiver <file_name>

Example:

cargo run -- find-receiver backup.bin

If a matching receiver answers within 3 seconds, the command prints the receiver address.

Archive Format

The encrypted file contains:

1. 16-byte random salt
2. 24-byte random nonce
3. encrypted zstd-compressed archive bytes

Inside the compressed archive, metadata is written in little-endian fields, followed by file names, relative paths, and file contents.

License

Apache License 2.0. See LICENSE.