SAFE FUSE lets you access your SAFE Network storage as if it is on your local drive. It implements a virtual drive for SAFE Network on Windows, Mac OS and Linux computers.
NOTE: only Linux is supported so far, but feel free to build for Windows or Mac and report back.
By executing the mount-safe command you can mount a virtual drive on your computer with the following features.
- browse your SAFE public files as a directory under
~/SAFE/_public - list directories and files using the command line (e.g.
ls,treeetc.) - access any file from a regular application or the command line
- browse your SAFE public names as a directory under
~/SAFE/_publicNames - list public names, their services, and any service container files
- access any file from a regular application or the command line
- write public files (e.g. save, create, and copy to new files and directories)
- create public names and services:
- create decentralised domains
- upload a website to a domain
- mount web style services (e.g. RESTful LDP, WebDav, and Solid via SafenetworkJs)
- access private files (i.e.
_documents, _music, _video, _photosetc) - command line options to:
- mount a single resource at a specified mount path on the SAFE drive
- specify access permissions on a specified mounted path
Suggestions and feature requests welcome: please submit as issues
This software is made available on the condition that no warranty is attached to it and any use of the software is entirely at your own risk (see LICENSE).
The SAFE Network is a truly autonomous, decentralised internet. This Secure Access For Everyone Network (SAFE) tackles the increasing risks to individuals, business and nation states arising from over centralisation: domination by commercial monopolies, security risks from malware, hacking, surveillance and so on. It's a new and truly open internet aligned with the original vision held by its creators and early users, with security, net neutrality and unmediated open access baked in.
The following are currently all unique to the SAFE Network (2018):
- all services are secure and decentralised, including a human readable DNS
- highly censorship resistant to DDoS, deep packet inspection and nation state filters
- truly autonomous network
- data is guaranteed to be stored and available, forever with no ongoing fees (pay once to store)
- truly decentralised 'proof of resource' (farming), and not 'proof of work' or 'proof of stake'
- scalable non-blockchain based storage not just of hashes of data, but the data itself
- scalable non-blockchain cryptographically secured currency (Safecoin) with zero transaction fees
SAFE Network operates using the resources of anonymous 'farmers' who are rewarded with Safecoin, which they can sell or use to purchase storage and other services on the network. Safecoin is efficent and scalable (non-blockchain based) secure and anonymous digital cash.
SAFE is an open source project of @maidsafe, a private company which is majority owned by a Scottish charity, both based in Scotland but which is decentralised with employees and contributors based around the globe.
To use SAFE FUSE you will need an account on SAFE Network, which is currently in testing (see https://safenetwork.tech/get-involved/).
Download the latest zip file for your operating system from releases and extract to a directory on your computer.
Latest downloads: releases
We test mainly on Ubuntu 18 for now but SAFE FUSE has been tried successfully on other distros, so if you succeed (or not) on another distro please create an issue to report your findings and we'll add a note below.
In addition to Ubuntu 18, we have reports of success on Arch.
To install dependencies on Ubuntu:
sudo apt-get install libfuse-dev xdg-utils
If your distro doesn't have libfuse-dev try:
sudo apt-get install libfuse2 xdg-utils
On Arch based distros try fuse2:
sudo apt-get install fuse2 xdg-utils
Windows has not yet been tested but it should build. If you want to try it out see the development section below.
Mac OS has not yet been tested but it should build. If you want to try it out see the development section below.
Start the SAFE Browser and log into your SAFE account.
a) Assuming you are in the SAFE FUSE directory type: ./mount-safe
b) SAFE Browser should come to the front asking you to authorise SAFE FUSE to access your files, so click 'Authorise'.
c) Your SAFE Drive should now be mounted and you can test this as follows
Open another console and try some commands, such as:
ls ~/SAFE
ls ~/SAFE/_public
ls ~/SAFE/_publicNames
# etc
You can also try tree ~/SAFE but if you have a lot of files this can take a long time to complete as the development code has not been optimised for speed yet.
If you have uploaded files to your SAFE account you will see them in the directory listings, and you can view their contents on the terminal with cat or more, copy them to your hard drive with cp and so on, or open them in an application.
You can just shut down your computer, but if you wish to unmount the drive for any reason, or if it stops working.
On Linux, type:
umount ~/SAFE
If this fails, make sure you don't have any command line shells or the file manager open on a SAFE path.
If there is a problem internally, you may need to exit the process and unmount, in which case try:
pkill mount-safe ; sudo umount ~/SAFE
This software is in development and you are likely to encounter bugs, minor and serious, and you can help us fix these by submitting a report of what happened as an issue.
Before doing this, please try and capture some debugging output by mounting your drive using the following command, and then repeating the process that causes the error:
On Linux, capture debugging information as follows:
DEBUG=safe* ./mount-safe 2>&1 | tee debug.txt
This will create a file debug.txt next to the executable with useful logging including any error messages you see on the console. So once you trigger the error, stop the process with pkill mount-safe (in another window), and then upload the debug.txt file with the report as a New issue.
Pull requests are welcome of course, so if you would like to help with development or just want to run from source, see below.
SAFE FUSE is a command line application based on safe-cli-boilerplate.
It is written in NodeJS using the fuse-bindings and safenetworkjs libraries, and packaged as a stand-alone executable for Windows, Mac OS and Linux. Limitations on the packaging scheme mean that some files are placed next to the executable.
If you are not yet familiar with developing for SAFE Network, or have not previously used the 'mock' network to develop and test your code, please run through the SAFE Network Nodejs Tutorial before proceeding. Doing so should ensure you have all the pre-requisites and help you understand anything not made explicit in the instructions below.
Remember to fork on github and then clone your fork if you intend to work on the code. The following just clones the main repo:
git clone https://github.com/theWebalyst/safenetworkjs
cd safenetworkjs
npm install
npm link
Remember to fork on github and then clone your fork if you intend to work on the code. The following just clones the main repo:
git clone https://github.com/theWebalyst/safenetwork-fuse
cd safenetwork-fuse
NODE_ENV=dev npm install
npm link safenetworkjs
NOTE: any time you do npm install inside safenetwork-fuse/ you need to redo the npm link safenetworkjs to ensure it finds your copy of safenetworkjs
sudo apt-get install libfuse-dev libfuse2 xdg-utils
NOTE: you only need one of either libfuse-dev or libfuse2, and one may fail to install depending on which linux distro you have. So as long as one of them is installed your're good.
Build an executable for the host OS only, the default (output in ./dist/mock):
export NODE_ENV=dev
npm run build-mock
Commands to build for Windows and Mac OS can be found in the package.json file but SAFE FUSE has not been tested on them yet. Feel free to try and report back if you have success, ideally with a pull request for any fixes! 😄
Start the SAFE Browser in another terminal with:
NODE_ENV=dev safe-browser
In the browser, create an account on the mock network.
In your development terminal, in your build directory type:
NODE_ENV=dev DEBUG=safe* ./dist/mock/mount-safe
You should see output to the terminal, and assuming no errors you can access your SAFE drive (at ~/SAFE on Linux).
The following command enables debug output filtered to include statements starting with safe-fuse or safenetworkjs and allows you to debug the code with the Chrome or Chromium source code debugger.
DEBUG=safe-fuse*,safenetworkjs* node --inspect-brk bin.js
To use the debugger, start Chrome or Chromium, navigate to about:inspect and click on the link. The debugger will open and display the source code of the entry point.
If you want to capture the console debug output, append '2>&1| tee debug.txt' to the end of the command. This will capture a copy of the console output in debug.txt. For example:
DEBUG=safe-fuse*,safenetworkjs* node --inspect-brk bin.js 2>&1 | tee debug.txt
Build an executable for the host OS only, the default (output in ./dist/prod):
unset NODE_ENV
npm run build
To test your build, start the SAFE Browser, login to your account and in another console:
unset NODE_ENV
./dist/prod/mount-safe
Before requesting help here, please follow the SAFE Network Nodejs Tutorial and ensure you are able to build a desktop app. That should ensure you have all the pre-requisites, and help you to understand how to test using a mock SAFE Network.
If you have problems with the tutorial please post on the SAFE Network developer forum rather than here.
Pull requests are welcome for outstanding issues and feature requests. Please note that contributions are subject to the LICENSE (see below).
IMPORTANT: By submitting a pull request, you will be offering code under the LICENSE (below).
Before submitting your code please consider using Standard.js formatting. You may also find it helps to use an editor with support for Standard.js when developing and testing. An easy way is just to use Atom IDE with the package [ide-standardjs] (and optionally standard-formatter). Or you can install NodeJS Standard.js.
This project is made available under the GPL-3.0 LICENSE except for individual files which contain their own license so long as that file license is compatible with GPL-3.0.
The responsibility for checking this licensing is valid and that your use of this code complies lies with any person and organisation making any use of it.