flud backup 
==========================================

flud backup is experimental software.  This release *is not* meant for use as a
reliable backup mechanism.  It is, however, fully capable of performing backup
and restore of data, especially among networks of trusted nodes, or performing
experiments and measurements on flud backup networks contained wholly on a
single computer (emulated flud networks).  The software is very much a
work in progress, and major components of the architecture are not complete.

The next releases of flud backup will contain functional trust and fairness
mechanisms that will allow, for the first time, the instantiation of the public
flud network.  Until then, this release serves as a preview and experimentation
platform.


Installation
============

See the file INSTALL for guidance on installing flud backup.


Running
=======

To start up a flud node, do:
$ fludnode <bootstraphost> <bootstrapport>

(if this is the first node in the flud network, you can omit the
bootstraphost/port.  When the public flud network becomes more generally
available, an alternate mechanism will be used to automatically find and use
it)

To start the flud scheduler, do:
$ fludscheduler

To start the flud client (graphical interface), do:
$ fludclient

To start a command-line flud client, do:
$ fludlocalclient

All of the above commands will honor the FLUDHOME environment variable, for
alternate locations of the ~/.flud directory.


Experimenting
=============

To start an emulated flud network of N nodes, do:
$ start-fludnodes N

To view storage consumed by flud nodes in an emulated flud network, do:
$ gauges-fludnodes ~/.flud 1-n

(note that you can stop and start nodes interactively with the gauges panel)

To stop the emulated flud network of N nodes, do:
$ stop-fludnodes N

To clean out data from all emulated flud nodes, do:
$ clean-fludnodes

See http://www.flud.org/wiki/Emulated_flud_Networks for instructions and
examples of how to run and test emulated flud networks.

See http://www.flud.org/wiki/Testing_Utilities for instructions on running some
of the test suites.


Feedback
========

All discussion, feedback, and bug reports should be directed to the flud-devel
mailing list at flud-devel@flud.org (archive and subscriber information at
http://flud.org/mailman/listinfo/flud-devel_flud.org).