sia

README

Sia 0.5.1

Binaries can be found at our website. Code for the graphical front-end can be found at the Sia-UI repo.

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. The currency was launched on June 7th, 2015, but the storage platform itself remains 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 using it 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'm 100% sure my ports are open, but Sia won't let me announce as a host.

  siad tries to verify your connectivity by pinging your external IPv4 address. This method is sufficient for most people, but for unusual setups it may report false negatives. To override this check, you can "force" the announcement by running siac host announce [ip:port]. You can determine your external IP by running siac gateway or using a 3rd-party service.

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

  There is a 144-block confirmation delay before you will receive siacoins from mined blocks. If you still have not received the block reward after 144 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:

slack: http://slackin.siacoin.com (ping taek or nemo)

email:

david@nebulouslabs.com

luke@nebulouslabs.com

Version Information

• The API changed a great deal in v0.5.0. The majority of routes were changed, though some less dramatically than others. The wallet and miner are mostly unchanged, but the renter was overhauled completely. When in doubt, consult doc/API.md.

• v0.5.0 introduces folder structure to the renter. This means that Sia behaves more like a traditional storage volume. File names are interpreted as paths, relative to the Sia "root folder." Note that when manipulating such paths, there is no leading slash (/); as an example, foo.sia lives at the root level, while bar/baz.sia lives in the bar folder.

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

January 2016:

v0.5.1 (patch)

• Fixed bug severely impacting performance
• Restored (but deprecated) some siac commands
• Added modules flag, allowing modules to be disabled

v0.5.0 (minor release)

• Major API changes to most modules
• Automatic contract renewal
• Data on inactive hosts is reuploaded
• Support for folder structure
• Smarter host

October 2015:

v0.4.8 (patch)

• Restored compatibility with v0.4.6

v0.4.7 (patch)

• Dropped support for v0.3.3.x

v0.4.6 (patch)

• Removed over-agressive consistency check

v0.4.5 (patch)

• Fixed last prominent bug in block database
• Closed some dangling resource handles

v0.4.4 (patch)

• Uploading is much more reliable
• Price estimations are more accurate
• Bumped filesize limit to 20 GB

v0.4.3 (patch)

• Block database is now faster and more stable
• Wallet no longer freezes when unlocked during IBD
• Optimized block encoding/decoding

September 2015:

v0.4.2 (patch)

• HostDB is now smarter
• Tweaked renter contract creation

v0.4.1 (patch)

• Added support for loading v0.3.3.x wallets
• Better pruning of dead nodes
• Improve database consistency

August 2015:

v0.4.0: Second stable currency release.

• Wallets are encrypted and generated from seed phrases
• Files are erasure-coded and transferred in parallel
• The blockchain is now fully on-disk
• Added UPnP support