nvdnkpr / clearskies

Open source btsync clone

ClearSkies

ClearSkies is a sync program similar to DropBox, except it does not require a monthly fee. Instead, you set up shares between two or more computers and the sharing happens amongst them directly.

ClearSkies is inspired by BitTorrent Sync, but it has an open protocol that can be audited for security.

This repository contains the protocol documentation as well as an in-the-works proof-of-concept implementation. The proof-of-concept implementation is open source and free software, under the GPLv3 (see the LICENSE file for details.)

The Protocol

The ClearSkies protocol has been documented and is in a draft state. It can be found in the protocol/ directory. protocol/core.md is a good starting place.

The protocol features:

• Simple-to-share access codes
• Read-write sync
• Read-only sharing
• Encrypted backup sharing to an untrusted peer
• Encrypted connections
• Shallow copy (do not sync certain files from peer)
• Subtree copy (only sync certain directories from peer)
• Streaming support
• Rsync file transfer (extension)
• Gzip compression (extension)
• Media streaming (future extension)
• Photo thumbnails (future extension)

The protocol is designed to be a common base for other sync programs, so that they can interoperate with each other. For example, a hypothetical wifi-enabled MIDI piano could speak the protocol and thereby sync its saved files to the owner's computer or tablet, without the piano manufacturer needing to write any PC or tablet software.

The Software

The software in this repository is a proof-of-concept of the protocol, written in ruby. It consists of a background daemon and a command-line interface to control that daemon.

There is an effort to port the daemon to C++ in a different repository which will replace the ruby proof-of-concept once it's ready.

The C++ daemon is being ported to android in this repository.

There is a separate effort to get the ruby proof-of-concept to run under jruby on android in this repository.

Status

The software is currently barely functional, in read-write mode only. It is not yet ready for production use. IT MAY EAT YOUR DATA. Only use it on test data or on data that you have backed up someplace safe.

Security

The software does not attempt to provide anonymity. Access code sharing is designed to reduce the impact of surveillance by using one-time codes by default, and using perfect forward secrecy on the wire.

Setup of a share is vulnerable to an active man-in-the-middle attack if the channel used to send the access code is insecure.

For example, if Bob sends Alice an access code over SMS, Eve can try to connect to Bob before Alice does. Alice will not be able to connect to the share. Eve can even create another share and issue the same access code to fool Alice into thinking she has connected to Bob.

It is believed that security-conscious users will automatically avoid this problem by sharing the access codes over secure channels.

Installation

It is currently only tested on Linux. (It should also work on ruby 1.9 on OS X and Windows, if not please file an issue.)

If you already have a working ruby 1.9 or 2.0:

gem install rb-inotify ffi

Otherwise, installing dependencies on Ubuntu or Debian:

apt-get install libgnutls26 ruby1.9.1 ruby-rb-inotify ruby-ffi

Note: The version of "ffi" in the Debian stable (wheezy) apt repository has issues. The version of "rb-inotify" in Ubuntu 12.04 (precise) also has issues. In those cases, install the gems via ruby gems:

apt-get remove ruby-rb-inotify ruby-ffi
apt-get install ruby-dev
gem install rb-inotify ffi

Clone this repo:

git clone https://github.com/jewel/clearskies

To start and share a directory:

cd clearskies
./clearskies start # add --no-fork to run in foreground
./clearskies share ~/important-stuff --mode=read-write

This will print out a "SYNC" code. Copy the code to the other computer, and then add the share to begin syncing:

./clearskies attach $CODE ~/important-stuff

Contributing

If you are a professional cryptographer with interest in this project, any feedback on the protocol is very welcome.

A major area that needs work is creating GUIs for each platform, such as GTK, Cocoa, QT, Android, iOS, browser-based, and a Windows program. GUIs do not need to be written in ruby, since they can control the daemon using a simple JSON RPC protocol, which is documented in protocol/control.md. This repository will only contain the command-line user interface, but will happily link to any GUIs that exist.

Issues and pull requests are welcome.

The project mailing list is on google groups. (You can participate via email if you do not have a google account.)