It looks like at some point there was interest in allowing storage nodes behind NAT; not sure what, if anything, has happened since.
https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/445 https://tahoe-lafs.org/pipermail/tahoe-dev/2009-December/003331.html In that mailing list thread, IPv6 was proposed as a solution. I live in the metro area of a first world country, and my ISP does not offer IPv6 out of the box, twelve years later... looks like it remains unsolved? :^) Regards, Sajith. On Sun, 2021-04-18 at 21:43 -0400, Sajith Sasidharan wrote: > Hi Swami, > > You are right, your email did not make it to the list. I'm sorry about > that. > Our list is a little broken right now. We're working on fixing it. > > Thank you for not giving up on us though! One challenge we have is not > knowing enough about real world users or usage of Tahoe-LAFS, so I am very > glad that you persisted. > > The usage pattern you've proposed sounds like sounds like a variation of > what > is called a "friendnet" in Tahoe-LAFS parlance, where a group of friends > share > storage with each other. Tahoe-LAFS could be appropriate for you, although > not quite in its current shape, and not right now, just as you thought. > > You have gathered some ideas from the linked Gridsync issue about > difficulties > of running Tahoe-LAFS storage nodes in people's home machines. I am still > new > to Tahoe-LAFS, so I am not sure I have better ideas than that. Hopefully > more > experienced people in the list will chime in. > > Regarding point 1, Tahoe-LAFS is not super simple to install or use at the > moment. I suppose we should strive to improve that. Regarding point 2, I'm > not quite sure what kind of challenges there are when running a storage > server > node behind a home router -- I have not partaken in a friendnet > myself. About > all your points, I'd love to heed to the community's wisdom. > > To answer your question about interest in the ideas, I do think they are > interesting. It should be possible to create what you describe using Tahoe- > LAFS as a building block. I am just unclear about the amount of effort. > > In any case, I suppose we should stay in touch. :) > > Regards, > Sajith. > > > On Sat, 2021-04-17 at 23:38 +0530, Swami Kevala wrote: > > Hi Sajith, > > > > Not sure if my email to Tahoe lafs Dev list was getting through... So > > sending to you directly. Hope you don't mind. > > > > Kind Regards > > Swami Kevala > > > > ---------- Forwarded message --------- > > From: Swami Kevala <swami.kev...@ishafoundation.org> > > Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2021, 13:09 > > Subject: Easy way for community to volunteer storage > > To: <tahoe-dev@tahoe-lafs.org> > > > > > > Hello, > > > > I am looking for a way to use Tahoe-LAFS to enable a large community of > > non- > > technical people to volunteer a fraction of the hard drive space on their > > personal computers to collaboratively host an archive of digital content > > in > > perpetuity. (Sort of a cross between BitTorrent and the SETI@Home project > > - > > but for storage rather than processing) > > > > We have an archive with about 1 PB of content, and we have a community of > > over a million active supporters. We are looking at cost-effective and > > resilient ways of hosting our archives on several redundant systems. > > Sharding, encrypting and distributing it to our community seems like one > > robust way of doing this. > > > > Points to note: > > > > 1. Software installation and configuration should be super-simple. One- > > click > > install, which asks the user how much space he can volunteer, and which > > local directory will be used > > > > 2. Most people will not have a static IP address, so the solution should > > work for the average personal computer setup (dynamic IP assigned by ISP) > > - > > without needing any additional router configuration > > > > 3. It is not a problem if many people have their computers switched off > > frequently (e.g. during non-work hours). The primary purpose is to provide > > a > > durable long term archive; speed of restoring content is a secondary > > factor. > > > > 4. The volunteers would not use the grid to share their own content. The > > system would be strictly one-way. Our central archives would be pushed > > onto > > the distributed storage provided by the community. The motivation for the > > community to participate is that they understand the archive holds content > > which is of great value to humanity. > > > > 5. The amount of storage per node could vary between say 10GB on a home > > PC, > > to say 1TB on a server type system > > > > For your reference, I initially posted this question on the Gridsync > > Github > > page, and was directed to this mailing list by the developer > > > > https://github.com/gridsync/gridsync/issues/341 > > > > I understand that currently this may not possible as I have described. > > Would > > like to know if there is any interest in the ideas being proposed, and any > > likelihood of this kind of arrangement being possible in the future. > > > > Kind Regards > > Swami Kevala > > _______________________________________________ tahoe-dev mailing list tahoe-dev@tahoe-lafs.org https://tahoe-lafs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tahoe-dev
