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This is how to run a Tahoe-LAFS client or a complete Tahoe-LAFS grid. First you have to install the Tahoe-LAFS software, as documented in quickstart.rst.
The tahoe
program in the bin
directory is used to create,
start, and stop nodes. Each node lives in a separate base directory, in
which there is a configuration file named tahoe.cfg
. Nodes read and
write files within this base directory.
A grid consists of a set of storage nodes and client nodes running the Tahoe-LAFS code. There is also an introducer node that is responsible for getting the other nodes talking to each other.
If you're getting started we recommend you try connecting to the public test grid as you only need to create a client node. When you want to create your own grid you'll need to create the introducer and several initial storage nodes (see the note about small grids below).
If the Tahoe-LAFS bin
directory is not on your PATH, then in all
the command lines below, specify the full path to bin/tahoe
.
To construct a client node, run "tahoe create-client
", which will create
~/.tahoe
to be the node's base directory. Acquire the introducer.furl
(see below if you are running your own introducer, or use the one from the
TestGrid page), and paste it after introducer.furl =
in the
[client]
section of ~/.tahoe/tahoe.cfg
. Then use "tahoe run
~/.tahoe
". After that, the node should be off and running. The first thing
it will do is connect to the introducer and get itself connected to all other
nodes on the grid.
By default, "tahoe create-client
" creates a client-only node, that
does not offer its disk space to other nodes. To configure other behavior,
use "tahoe create-node
" or see configuration.rst.
To construct an introducer, create a new base directory for it (the
name of the directory is up to you), cd
into it, and run
"tahoe create-introducer .
". Now run the introducer using
"tahoe start .
". After it starts, it will write a file named
introducer.furl
into the private/
subdirectory of that base
directory. This file contains the URL the other nodes must use in order
to connect to this introducer. (Note that "tahoe run .
" doesn't
work for introducers, this is a known issue: #937.)
The "tahoe run
" command above will run the node in the foreground.
On Unix, you can run it in the background instead by using the
"tahoe start
" command. To stop a node started in this way, use
"tahoe stop
". tahoe --help
gives a summary of all commands.
See configuration.rst for more details about how to configure Tahoe-LAFS, including how to get other clients to connect to your node if it is behind a firewall or NAT device.
By default, Tahoe-LAFS ships with the configuration parameter
shares.happy
set to 7. If you are using Tahoe-LAFS on a grid with fewer
than 7 storage nodes, this won't work well for you -- none of your uploads
will succeed. To fix this, see configuration.rst to learn how to set
shares.happy
to a more suitable value for your grid.
This is how to use your Tahoe-LAFS node.
Point your web browser to http://127.0.0.1:3456 -- which is the URL of the gateway running on your own local computer -- to use your newly created node.
Create a new directory (with the button labelled "create a directory"). Your web browser will load the new directory. Now if you want to be able to come back to this directory later, you have to bookmark it, or otherwise save a copy of the URL. If you lose the URL to this directory, then you can never again come back to this directory.
You can do more or less everything you want to do with a decentralized filesystem through the WUI.
Prefer the command-line? Run "tahoe --help
" (the same command-line tool
that is used to start and stop nodes serves to navigate and use the
decentralized filesystem). To get started, create a new directory and mark it
as the 'tahoe:' alias by running "tahoe create-alias tahoe
". Once you've
done that, you can do "tahoe ls tahoe:
" and "tahoe cp LOCALFILE
tahoe:foo.txt
" to work with your filesystem. The Tahoe-LAFS CLI uses
similar syntax to the well-known scp and rsync tools. See CLI.rst for more
details.
As with the WUI (and with all current interfaces to Tahoe-LAFS), you are responsible for remembering directory capabilities yourself. If you create a new directory and lose the capability to it, then you cannot access that directory ever again.
You can access your Tahoe-LAFS grid via any SFTP or FTP client.
See FTP-and-SFTP.rst for how to set
this up. On most Unix platforms, you can also use SFTP to plug
Tahoe-LAFS into your computer's local filesystem via sshfs
.
The SftpFrontend page on the wiki has more information about using SFTP with Tahoe-LAFS.
Want to program your Tahoe-LAFS node to do your bidding? Easy! See webapi.rst.
You can chat with other users of and hackers of this software on the
#tahoe-lafs IRC channel at irc.freenode.net
, or on the tahoe-dev mailing
list.