sia

README

Sia 0.3.3

Binaries can be found at our website.

Sia is a new decentralized cloud storage platform aimed at giving users control of their data. Data is split into hundreds of erasure coded pieces and encrypted locally, and then each piece is uploaded to a separate host. A blockchain is used to create cryptographic contracts ensuring that hosts will only get paid if they actually store the data. Out of hundreds of hosts, only a fraction are required to recover the original file.

Anybody can join the network as a host and get income from the storage they contribute. This openness allows Sia to build and take advantage of a global network of small datacenters. Combined with advanced algorithms for storing and retrieving data, Sia is poised to be a highly competitive cloud storage platform. More information about the technology can be found on our website and in the 'doc' folder of the repo.

Sia is currently in beta, and will be launching the currency on June 7th, 2015. Even though the currency is launching, the storage platform itself will remain in beta. Sia is ready for use with small sums of money and non-critical files, but until the network has a more proven track record we advise against relying on Sia as a sole means of storing important data.

This release comes with 2 binaries, siad and siac. siad is a background service, or "daemon," that runs the Sia protocol, and siac is a client that is used to interact with siad. Siad exposes an API on 'localhost:9980' which can be used to interact with the daemon. There is a front-end program called Sia-UI which can be used to interact with the daemon in a more user-friendly way. Documentation on the API can be found in doc/API.md.

Usage

siad and siac are run via command prompt. On Windows, you can just double- click siad.exe if you don't need to specify any command-line arguments. Otherwise, navigate to the sia folder and click File->Open command prompt. Then, start the siad service by entering siad and pressing Enter. The command prompt may appear to freeze; this means siad is waiting for requests. Windows users may see a warning from the Windows Firewall; be sure to check both boxes ("Private networks" and "Public networks") and click "Allow access." You can now run siac in a separate command prompt to interact with siad. From here, you can send money, mine blocks, upload and download files, and advertise yourself as a host.

Troubleshooting

• The client does not appear to join the network.

  There should be at least one peer online for you to connect to, so if you cannot connect, you may be experiencing connection issues. Ensure that you are connected to the Internet. If you are confident that your connection is okay, contact us! Our server may be experiencing problems.

  You can also opt not to connect to join the network by passing the "-n" flag to siad.

• I can't connect to more than 8 peers.

  Once Sia has connected to 8 peers, it will stop trying to form new connections, but it will still accept incoming connection requests (up to 128 total peers). However, if you are behind a firewall, you will not be able to accept incoming connections. You must configure your firewall to allow Sia connections by forwarding your ports. By default, Sia communicates on ports 9981 and 9982. The specific instructions for forwarding a port vary by router. For more information, consult this guide.

  In future versions, we will add support for UPnP, which may allow you to skip this step if your router supports it.

• I mined a block, but I didn't receive any money.

  There is a 50-block confirmation delay before you will receive siacoins from mined blocks. If you still have not received the block reward after 50 blocks, it means your block did not made it into the blockchain.

• siad complains about "locks held too long."

  This is debugging output, and should not occur during normal use. Please contact us if this happens.

If your issue is not addressed above, you can get in touch with us personally:

email:

david@nebulouslabs.com

luke@nebulouslabs.com

IRC: #siatalk on freenode (ping Taek)

Version Information

• If you intend to host files, you must forward your host port, and you should do so before making your host announcement. The default host port is 9982.

• Please mine. Mining helps keep the network running smoothly. It can also cause changes to propagate if they seem to be taking a while.

• Uploading may take a long time, since the file contract needs to make it into a block. The default redundancy is also set very high, so uploading may be more expensive than expected.

Please tell us about any problems you run into, and any features you want! The advantage of being a beta user is that your feedback will have a large impact on what we do in the next few months. Thank you!

Version History

v0.3.3: Stable currency release.

v0.3.2: Fourth open beta release.

v0.3.1: Third open beta release.

v0.3.0: Second open beta release.

v0.2.0: First open beta release.

v0.1.0: Closed beta release.