minerswin / tahoe-lafs-manual

Setting up a Tahoe-LAFS Grid on Linux

Setting up a Tahoe-LAFS Grid

This manual explains the configuration of a simple Tahoe-LAFS Cloud Storage Network on Linux.

For more info on Tahoe-LAFS (Least Authority File System) visit https://tahoe-lafs.readthedocs.io/

Setting up an Introducer

The introducer is needed to connect all Storage Nodes and allow users to join the Grid.

First, let's create a new unprivileged user:

adduser --disabled-password --gecos "" tahoe

Then install the Tahoe-LAFS Software and switch to the newly created user:

apt install tahoe-lafs
su - tahoe

Next, run the command to create an introducer config file:

tahoe create-introducer --port=tcp:1234 --location=tcp:<replace with public IP>:1234 --basedir=introducer

This also generates a so-called FURL that you need to know in order to connect Nodes or Clients to the network. Run:

tahoe run --basedir introducer

...wait some time and press Ctrl-C.

Then, display the FURL and exit back to root:

cat introducer/private/introducer.furl # write it down or copy it into a text file
exit

Finally, create a Systemd service for automatically running the introducer at boot time: Go to /etc/systemd/system/tahoe-introducer.service and paste the following text:

[Unit]
Description=Tahoe-LAFS autostart introducer
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=tahoe
WorkingDirectory=/home/tahoe
ExecStart=/usr/bin/tahoe run introducer --logfile=logs/introducer.log

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

To enable the service, type systemctl enable tahoe-introducer.service and restart the system. Your introducer should now be running.

Setting up some Storage Nodes

The Storage Nodes actually store the client's encrypted data. The first steps are the same as above:

adduser --disabled-password --gecos "" tahoe
apt install tahoe-lafs
su - tahoe

Then, you need to create a Node configuration file:

tahoe create-node --nickname=<replace with a nickname for the node> --introducer=pb://<replace with introducer FURL> --port=tcp:1235 --location=tcp:<replace with node public IP>:1235

Now, exit.

Next, create a new systemd service at /etc/systemd/system/tahoe-node.service:

[Unit]
Description=Tahoe-LAFS autostart node
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=tahoe
WorkingDirectory=/home/tahoe
ExecStart=/usr/bin/tahoe run .tahoe --logfile=logs/node.log

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Also, run systemctl enable tahoe-node.service. Finally, restart your machine.

Repeat this step for every new node in the grid.

Testing the Grid

To test if all nodes are connected to the introducer, you need to set up a client.

apt install tahoe-lafs
tahoe create-client --nickname=<relpace with client nickname> --introducer=<replace with introducers FURL>

To start the Tahoe-LAFS Web Interface at localhost:3456, simply type:

tahoe run

Open a web browser at localhost:3456 and check the Grid status. Everything should now be up and running.

Using the Grid with Gridsync

Download Gridsync from the GitHub Repository: https://github.com/gridsync/gridsync Start it up and select Manual configuration. Then type in a Grid name and paste your introducer FURL. Then connect to the Network.

For more info on Gridsync, check out the GitHub Project Repository

Thanks for reading.