-NEW VERSION RELEASED
+ANNOUNCING Tahoe, the Least-Authority File System, v1.8.2
-We are pleased to announce the release of version 0.4 of
-Allmydata-Tahoe, a secure, decentralized storage grid under a
-free-software licence. This is the follow-up to v0.3 which was
-released June 6, 2007 (see [1]).
+The Tahoe-LAFS team is pleased to announce the immediate
+availability of version 1.8.2 of Tahoe-LAFS, an extremely
+reliable distributed storage system. Get it here:
-Since then we've made several improvements, including:
+http://tahoe-lafs.org/source/tahoe/trunk/docs/quickstart.rst
- * Add encrypted, mutable directories, so that you can organize your
- files into directories, change the contents of directories, and
- share your directories with your friends, without thereby sharing
- your directories with anyone else -- not even with the owners of
- the servers that host your directories.
+Tahoe-LAFS is the first distributed storage system to offer
+"provider-independent security" — meaning that not even the
+operators of your storage servers can read or alter your data
+without your consent. Here is the one-page explanation of its
+unique security and fault-tolerance properties:
- * make it so that web browsers can connect to the Tahoe node securely
- with https (ticket #55)
+http://tahoe-lafs.org/source/tahoe/trunk/docs/about.rst
+The previous stable release of Tahoe-LAFS was v1.8.1, which was
+released October 28, 2010 [1].
-For complete details, see this web page which shows all ticket
-changes, repository checkins, and wiki changes from June 11 to today,
-June 29: [2].
-
-Allmydata-Tahoe v0.4 is incompatible with v0.3 due to the new
-encrypted directory structure, among other things. (Note that this
-applies only to directories -- individual files uploaded with v0.3 are
-probably downloadable with v0.4.)
+v1.8.2 is a stable bugfix release, adding compatibility with
+the recently-released Twisted-10.2, and correcting a number of
+minor issues. See the NEWS.rst file [2] for details.
WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?
-The source code that we are releasing is the current working prototype
-for Allmydata's next-generation product. This release is targeted at
-hackers and users who are willing to use a minimal, text-oriented web
-user interface.
+With Tahoe-LAFS, you distribute your filesystem across
+multiple servers, and even if some of the servers fail or are
+taken over by an attacker, the entire filesystem continues to
+work correctly, and continues to preserve your privacy and
+security. You can easily share specific files and directories
+with other people.
+
+In addition to the core storage system itself, volunteers
+have built other projects on top of Tahoe-LAFS and have
+integrated Tahoe-LAFS with existing systems, including
+Windows, JavaScript, iPhone, Android, Hadoop, Flume, Django,
+Puppet, bzr, mercurial, perforce, duplicity, TiddlyWiki, and
+more. See the Related Projects page on the wiki [3].
+
+We believe that strong cryptography, Free and Open Source
+Software, erasure coding, and principled engineering practices
+make Tahoe-LAFS safer than RAID, removable drive, tape,
+on-line backup or cloud storage.
+
+This software is developed under test-driven development, and
+there are no known bugs or security flaws which would
+compromise confidentiality or data integrity under recommended
+use. (For all important issues that we are currently aware of
+please see the known_issues.rst file [4].)
+
+
+COMPATIBILITY
+
+This release is compatible with the version 1 series of
+Tahoe-LAFS. Clients from this release can write files and
+directories in the format used by clients of all versions back
+to v1.0 (which was released March 25, 2008). Clients from this
+release can read files and directories produced by clients of
+all versions since v1.0. Servers from this release can serve
+clients of all versions back to v1.0 and clients from this
+release can use servers of all versions back to v1.0.
+
+This is the thirteenth release in the version 1 series. This
+series of Tahoe-LAFS will be actively supported and maintained
+for the foreseeable future, and future versions of Tahoe-LAFS
+will retain the ability to read and write files compatible
+with this series.
-This software is not yet recommended for storage of highly
-confidential data nor for important data which is not otherwise backed
-up, but it is useful for experimentation, prototyping, and extension.
-This release of Allmydata-Tahoe is suitable for Use Case #2: "groups
-of friends who want to share backup and file-sharing" (see the wiki
-page "UseCases": [3]). It is easy to set up a private grid which is
-securely shared among a specific, limited set of friends. Files
-uploaded to this shared grid will be available to all friends, even
-when some of the computers are unavailable. It is also easy to use a
-public grid, but to encrypt individual files and directories so that
-only intended recipients can read them.
+LICENCE
+You may use this package under the GNU General Public License,
+version 2 or, at your option, any later version. See the file
+"COPYING.GPL" [5] for the terms of the GNU General Public
+License, version 2.
-LICENCE
+You may use this package under the Transitive Grace Period
+Public Licence, version 1 or, at your option, any later
+version. (The Transitive Grace Period Public Licence has
+requirements similar to the GPL except that it allows you to
+delay for up to twelve months after you redistribute a derived
+work before releasing the source code of your derived work.)
+See the file "COPYING.TGPPL.rst" [6] for the terms of the
+Transitive Grace Period Public Licence, version 1.
-Tahoe is offered under the GNU General Public License (v2 or later),
-with the added permission that, if you become obligated to release a
-derived work under this licence (as per section 2.b), you may delay
-the fulfillment of this obligation for up to 12 months.
+(You may choose to use this package under the terms of either
+licence, at your option.)
INSTALLATION
-This release of Tahoe works on Linux/x86, Linux/amd64, Mac/Intel,
-Mac/PPC, Windows-native, and Cygwin.
+Tahoe-LAFS works on Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, Solaris, *BSD,
+and probably most other systems. Start with
+"docs/quickstart.rst" [7].
-To install, download the tarball [4], untar it, go into the resulting
-directory, and follow the directions in the README [5].
+HACKING AND COMMUNITY
-USAGE
+Please join us on the mailing list [8]. Patches are gratefully
+accepted -- the RoadMap page [9] shows the next improvements
+that we plan to make and CREDITS [10] lists the names of people
+who've contributed to the project. The Dev page [11] contains
+resources for hackers.
-Once installed, create a "client node". Instruct this client node to
-connect to a specific "introducer node" by means of config files in
-the client node's working directory. To join a public grid, copy in
-the .furl files for that grid. To create a private grid, run your own
-introducer, and copy its .furl files. See the README for step-by-step
-instructions.
-Each client node runs a local webserver (enabled by writing the
-desired port number into a file called 'webport'). The front page of
-this webserver shows the node's status, including which introducer is
-being used and which other nodes are connected. Links from the status
-page lead to others that give access to a shared virtual filesystem,
-in which each directory is represented by a separate page. Each
-client node also has a separate (non-shared) virtual filesystem. Each
-directory page shows a list of the files available there, with
-download links, and forms to upload new files.
+SPONSORSHIP
-Other ways to access the filesystem are planned: please see the
-roadmap.txt [6] for some rough details.
+Tahoe-LAFS was originally developed by Allmydata, Inc., a
+provider of commercial backup services. After discontinuing
+funding of Tahoe-LAFS R&D in early 2009, they continued
+to provide servers, bandwidth, small personal gifts as tokens
+of appreciation, and bug reports.
+Google, Inc. sponsored Tahoe-LAFS development as part of the
+Google Summer of Code 2010. They awarded four sponsorships to
+students from around the world to hack on Tahoe-LAFS that
+summer.
-HACKING AND COMMUNITY
+Thank you to Allmydata and Google for their generous and
+public-spirited support.
+
+
+HACK TAHOE-LAFS!
+
+If you can find a security flaw in Tahoe-LAFS which is serious
+enough that we feel compelled to warn our users and issue a fix,
+then we will award you with a customized t-shirts with your
+exploit printed on it and add you to the "Hack Tahoe-LAFS Hall
+Of Fame" [12].
+
+
+ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
+
+This is the seventh release of Tahoe-LAFS to be created solely
+as a labor of love by volunteers. Thank you very much to the
+team of "hackers in the public interest" who make Tahoe-LAFS
+possible.
+
+Brian Warner
+on behalf of the Tahoe-LAFS team
+
+January 30, 2011
+San Francisco, California, USA
-Please join the mailing list [7] to discuss the ideas behind Tahoe and
-extensions of and uses of Tahoe. Patches that extend and improve
-Tahoe are gratefully accepted -- roadmap.txt shows the next
-improvements that we plan to make and CREDITS lists the names of
-people who've contributed to the project. You can browse the revision
-control history, source code, and issue tracking at the Trac instance
-[8]. Please see the buildbot [9], which shows how Tahoe builds and
-passes unit tests on each checkin, and the code coverage results [10]
-and percentage-covered graph [11], which show how much of the Tahoe
-source code is currently exercised by the test suite.
-
-
-NETWORK ARCHITECTURE
-
-Each peer maintains a connection to each other peer. A single
-distinct server called an "introducer" is used to discover other peers
-with which to connect.
-
-To store a file, the file is encrypted and erasure coded, and each
-resulting share is uploaded to a different peer. The secure hash of
-the encrypted file and the encryption key are packed into a URI,
-knowledge of which is necessary and sufficient to recover the file.
-
-To fetch a file, starting with the URI, a subset of shares is
-downloaded from peers, the file is reconstructed from the shares, and
-then decrypted.
-
-A single distinct server called a "vdrive server" maintains a global
-mapping from pathnames/filenames to URIs.
-
-We are acutely aware of the limitations of decentralization and
-scalability inherent in this version. In particular, the
-completely-connected property of the grid and the requirement of a
-single distinct introducer and vdrive server limits the possible size
-of the grid. We have plans to loosen these limitations (see
-roadmap.txt). Currently it should be noted that the grid already
-depends as little as possible on the accessibility and correctness of
-the introduction server and the vdrive server. Also note that the
-choice of which servers to use is easily configured -- you should be
-able to set up a private grid for you and your friends almost as
-easily as to connect to our public test grid.
-
-
-SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE
-
-Tahoe is a "from the ground-up" rewrite, inspired by Allmydata's
-existing consumer backup service. It is primarily written in the
-Python programming language.
-
-Tahoe is based on the Foolscap library [12] which provides a remote
-object protocol inspired by the capability-secure "E" programming
-language [13]. Foolscap allows us to express the intended behavior of
-the distributed grid directly in object-oriented terms while relying
-on a well-engineered, secure transport layer.
-
-The network layer is provided by the Twisted library [14].
-Computationally intensive operations are performed in native compiled
-code, such as the "zfec" library for fast erasure coding (also
-available separately: [15]).
-
-Tahoe is sponsored by Allmydata, Inc. [16], a provider of consumer
-backup services. Allmydata, Inc. contributes hardware, software,
-ideas, bug reports, suggestions, demands, and money (employing several
-Allmydata-Tahoe hackers and allowing them to spend part of their work
-time on the next-generation, free-software project). We are eternally
-grateful!
-
-
-Zooko O'Whielacronx and Brian Warner
-on behalf of the Allmydata-Tahoe team
-June 29, 2007
-Boulder, Colorado and San Francisco, California
-
-
-[1] http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe/browser/relnotes.txt?rev=790
-[2] http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe/timeline?from=2007-06-29&daysback=17&changeset=on&ticket=on&wiki=on&update=Update
-[3] http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe/wiki/UseCases
-[4] http://allmydata.org/source/tahoe/tahoe-0.4.tar.gz
-[5] http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe/browser/README?rev=844
-[6] http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe/browser/roadmap.txt
-[7] http://allmydata.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tahoe-dev
-[8] http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe
-[9] http://allmydata.org/buildbot
-[10] http://allmydata.org/tahoe-figleaf/figleaf/
-[11] http://allmydata.org/tahoe-figleaf-graph/hanford.allmydata.com-tahoe_figleaf.html
-[12] http://twistedmatrix.com/trac/wiki/FoolsCap
-[13] http://erights.org/
-[14] http://twistedmatrix.com/
-[15] http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe/browser/src/zfec
-[16] http://allmydata.com
+[1] http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe/browser/relnotes.txt?rev=4865
+[2] http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe/browser/NEWS?rev=5000
+[3] http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe/wiki/RelatedProjects
+[4] http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe/browser/docs/known_issues.rst
+[5] http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe/browser/COPYING.GPL
+[6] http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe/browser/COPYING.TGPPL.rst
+[7] http://tahoe-lafs.org/source/tahoe/trunk/docs/quickstart.rst
+[8] http://tahoe-lafs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tahoe-dev
+[9] http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe/roadmap
+[10] http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe/browser/CREDITS?rev=5000
+[11] http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe/wiki/Dev
+[12] http://tahoe-lafs.org/hacktahoelafs/
projects / tahoe-lafs / tahoe-lafs.git / blobdiff