Get Started

Before proceeding, this guide uses the Infinit command-line tools with a terminal window. You don’t need to be a UNIX guru but you should be familiar with typing shell commands and interpreting outputs.

The following is written for users of Linux. If you are not using this platform, please refer to the macOS or Windows guide.

Choose a platform

Installation

Install Infinit’s dependencies

Infinit relies on FUSE to create file systems in userland. Assuming you want to make use of the FUSE file system interface, you will need to install FUSE using your distribution's package manager. For example, if you use a Debian based distribution, you would use apt-get:

$> sudo apt-get install fuse

Some distributions, such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS, require that you add your user to the fuse group. You will only need to do this step if you get a permission denied error when trying to mount a volume. After adding the user to the group, you will need to logout and back in again.

$> sudo usermod -aG fuse $USER

Install the Infinit command-line tools

$> docker run --rm --privileged -it infinit/infinit bash

$> infinit --version
0.8.0

$> sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 3D2C3B0B
...
gpg: key 6821EB43: public key "Infinit <contact@infinit.sh>" imported

$> sudo apt-get install software-properties-common apt-transport-https
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
software-properties-common is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

$> sudo add-apt-repository "deb https://debian.infinit.sh/ trusty main"

$> sudo apt-get update
$> sudo apt-get install infinit
...
Unpacking infinit (0.8.0)...
Setting up infinit (0.8.0)...

$> sudo yum install yum-utils

$> sudo yum-config-manager --add-repo https://yum.infinit.sh/infinit.repo

$> sudo yum install infinit

$> cd /opt/infinit
$> ls
bin/    lib/    share/

$> tar xjvf infinit-x86_64-linux_debian_oldstable-gcc4-0.8.0.tbz
infinit-x86_64-linux_debian_oldstable-gcc4-0.8.0/
infinit-x86_64-linux_debian_oldstable-gcc4-0.8.0/bin/
infinit-x86_64-linux_debian_oldstable-gcc4-0.8.0/lib
...
infinit-x86_64-linux_debian_oldstable-gcc4-0.8.0/bin/infinit
...

$> tar xjvf infinit-x86_64-alpine-gcc-0.8.0.tbz
infinit-x86_64-alpine-gcc-0.8.0/
infinit-x86_64-alpine-gcc-0.8.0/bin/
infinit-x86_64-alpine-gcc-0.8.0/lib
...
infinit-x86_64-alpine-gcc-0.8.0/bin/infinit
...

$> tar xjvf infinit-arm-0.8.0.tar.gz
infinit-arm-0.8.0/
infinit-arm-0.8.0/bin/
infinit-arm-0.8.0/lib
...
infinit-arm-0.8.0/bin/infinit
...

$> cd infinit-x86_64-linux_debian_oldstable-gcc4-0.8.0/
$> ls
bin/    lib/    share/

$> cd infinit-x86_64-alpine-gcc-0.8.0/
$> ls
bin/    lib/    share/

$> cd infinit-arm-0.8.0/
$> ls
bin/    lib/    share/

• The bin/ subdirectory contains the actual Infinit binary infinit.
• The lib/ subdirectory contains all the libraries the above binaries depend upon to operate (excluding the FUSE library you installed earlier).

Create Infrastructure

It is now time for you to create your own storage infrastructure. What follows is a step-by-step guide to set up infrastructure for a single user with two devices (named A and B). One of the devices will contribute storage capacity to store the blocks of data composing the files while the second device will read and write blocks over the network. This creates an NFS-like system even though it is also possible to create infrastructure where more than one node stores blocks. Subsequently, another user will be invited to join the storage infrastructure to show how to control permissions and more.

NOTE: For more information to learn how to set up completely decentralized infrastructure, how to plug cloud storage services such as AWS S3, Google Cloud Storage etc. or how to invite non-tech-savvy users to join and use storage infrastructure to store and access files as usual, you can skip this tutorial and refer directly to the reference documentation.

$> export PATH=$PWD/bin/:$PATH

Create a user

The first step consists of creating a user on the Hub. The Hub is a cloud service whose role is to ease the process of discovery, sharing and more, more about it here.

All the commands that follow use the user name alice but you should pick your own unique user name:

Device A
$> infinit user signup --name alice --fullname "Alice"
Generating RSA keypair.
Remotely saved user "alice".

Create a silo

A silo behaves like a hard disk, storing data blocks without understanding the data’s meaning. The beauty of Infinit is that it is completely agnostic of the nature of such silo.

Next, we are going to declare a local silo. A local silo stores data blocks as files in a directory (such as /var/storage/infinit/) on the local filesystem.

The binary infinit silo is used for this purpose. The filesystem sub mode is used to indicate that the storage will be on the local filesystem:

Device A
$> infinit silo create filesystem --name local --capacity 1GB
Created storage "local".

Create a network

Now that we have at least one silo to store data, we can create a network interconnecting different machines.

The infinit network command is used to create the network, specifying a name along with the list of silos to rely upon. We will ignore the other options now but you can read about them in the reference documentation. In this example, only the local silo is used but you could plug as many as you like. Obviously, you need to substitute alice with your username:

Device A
$> infinit network create --as alice --storage local --name my-network --push
Locally created network "alice/my-network".
Remotely saved network "alice/my-network".

NOTE: The --push option is used to publish the created network (likewise for other objects) onto the Hub for it to be easily fetched on another device or shared with other users.

Create a volume

The last step on this device consists of creating a logical volume to store and access files through a file system interface. Volumes can be manipulated through the infinit volume binary as shown next:

Device A
$> infinit volume create --as alice --network my-network --name my-volume --push
Locally created volume "alice/my-volume".
Remotely saved volume "alice/my-volume".

That’s it, you’ve created a volume named my-volume i.e. a filesystem. The blocks that the files are composed of will be distributed across the network named my-network, currently composed of a single computer with a single silo.

Mount the volume

For now, only configuration files have been created. Nothing has been run. Let’s start the server and access the volume by mounting it through FUSE, as easily as any other filesystem:

Device A
$> infinit volume mount --as alice --name my-volume --mountpoint ~/mnt-alice-volume --allow-root-creation --cache --publish
Running network "alice/my-network".
Fetched endpoints for "alice/my-network".
Running volume "alice/my-volume".
...

Device A
$> infinit volume mount --as alice --name my-volume --mountpoint ~/mnt-alice-volume --allow-root-creation --cache --publish &
Running network "alice/my-network".
Fetched endpoints for "alice/my-network".
Running volume "alice/my-volume".
...

That’s it! You can now create, list and access files from the mount point ~/mnt-alice-volume. Try creating a file right now:

Device A
$> echo "everything is" > ~/mnt-alice-volume/awesome.txt
$> cat ~/mnt-alice-volume/awesome.txt
everything is

Access from another machine

A user’s identity is analogous to an SSH key pair and should be treated in the same way. Because of its critical nature, it is not stored on the Hub like network and volume descriptors could be for instance. For this guide, we will rely on the Hub to transmit the identity in encrypted form to the other device.

Let’s transmit the user’s identity to the other device. Note that it will be encrypted with a passphrase chosen by you. Also you will only have 5 minutes to retrieve it on device B.

Device A
$> infinit device transmit --user --as alice
Passphrase: ********
Transmitted user identity for "alice".
User identity on the Hub for: 297 seconds

Now let’s move to device B. First, you need to download, install and configure the Infinit command-line tools on this new device as you did for device A. Please refer to the first sections of this guide for that purpose.

Device B
$> infinit device receive --user --name alice
Passphrase: ********
Received user identity for "alice".

NOTE: The pairing process may have expired on device A. If so, please try again and enter the passphrase on device B in order to retrieve your user identity before the counter runs down.

The next steps consist of fetching the resources that you previously pushed on the Hub: network and volume.

Device B
$> infinit network fetch --as alice --name my-network
Fetched network "alice/my-network".
infinit volume fetch --as alice --name my-volume
Fetched volume "alice/my-volume".

Let’s link this device to the my-network network you created on device A for this new device to be authorized to connect.

Device B
$> infinit network link --as alice --name my-network
Linked device to network "alice/my-network".

Finally, the volume can be mounted on device B as simply as on device A:

Device B
$> infinit volume mount --as alice --name my-volume --mountpoint ~/mnt-alice-volume --cache --publish
Fetch endpoints for "alice/my-network".
Running network "alice/my-network".
Running volume "alice/my-volume".
...

It is now time to check if the file you created on device A is synchronized with device B:

Device B
$> ls ~/mnt-alice-volume
awesome.txt
cat ~/mnt-alice-volume/awesome.txt
everything is

That’s it, you’ve created a volume that you quickly connected to two devices, without having to go through a complicated administrative process, and you mounted it through a FUSE interface.

Share the volume

We can now proceed a step further by allowing another user to connect to Alice's storage infrastructure and access/edit the files in the volume alice/my-volume.

First, let us create another user, unconventially named Bob, on a new container. Run another container by repeating the steps from earlier, then create your new user:

First, let us create another user, unconventially named Bob, on a completely new device C. As mentioned earlier, if you don't have another device available, you can simulate one through the use of the INFINIT_HOME environment variable.

Device C
$> infinit user signup --name bob --fullname "Bob"
Generating RSA keypair.
Remotely saved user "bob".

In order for another user (e.g Bob) to be able to connect to someone else's storage infrastructure, a passport is required. Only the infrastructure owner, in this case Alice, can issue such passports through the use of the infinit passport binary.

Back to device A and Alice to generate a passport for Bob. Note that in order to reference another user by its name, for generating a passport for instance, you first need to retrieve his/her user public identity from the Hub (or otherwise).

Device A
$> infinit user fetch --as alice --name bob
Fetched user "bob".
$> infinit passport create --as alice --network my-network --user bob --push
Locally created passport "alice/my-network: bob".
Remotely saved passport "alice/my-network: bob".

Now that a passport has been issued, Bob can very easily retrieve it from the Hub in order to join Alice's storage network. For this, Bob must fetch Alice's public user identity, Alice's alice/my-network network descriptor along with the freshly issued passport:

Device C
$> infinit user fetch --as alice --name bob
Fetched user "alice".
infinit network fetch --as bob --name alice/my-network
Fetched network "alice/my-network".
infinit passport fetch --as bob --network alice/my-network
Fetched passport for "alice/my-network".

With all the pieces fetched from the Hub, Bob can now link his current device C to Alice's storage network alice/my-network:

Device C
$> infinit network link --as bob --name alice/my-network
Linked device to network "alice/my-network".

Once his device linked to the network, Bob can now mount Alice's volume. Note that the volume descriptor alice/my-volume must first be retrieved from the Hub in order for it to be mounted:

Device C
$> infinit volume fetch --as bob --name alice/my-volume
Fetched volume "alice/my-volume".
$> infinit volume mount --as bob --name alice/my-volume --mountpoint ~/mnt-alice-volume --cache --publish
Running network "alice/my-network".
Fetched endpoints for "alice/my-network".
Running volume "alice/my-volume".
...

Bob can now try to access the mounted volume as shown below:

Device C
$> ls ~/mnt-alice-volume
ls: ~/mnt-alice-volume: Permission denied

As you can see, Bob cannot access Alice's volume because he has not been granted the permission to browse the root directory of alice/my-volume. Indeed, Infinit provides two layers of protections: passports prevent unauthorized computers to communicate with the servers of your storage infrastructure while an access control mechanism is provided to authorize other users to access/modify specific files and directories within a volume.

This lack of permission can be verified on Alice's device A, through the infinit acl binary which can be used for access control purposes:

Device A
$> infinit acl list --path ~/mnt-alice-volume
~/mnt-alice-volume:
        alice: rw (owner)

For Bob to access the file awesome.txt located in the volume, Alice needs to grant him access on both the root directory and the file itself:

Device A
$> infinit acl set --mode r --user bob --path ~/mnt-alice-volume
$> infinit acl set --mode r --user bob --path ~/mnt-alice-volume/awesome.txt
$> infinit acl list --path ~/mnt-alice-volume
~/mnt-alice-volume:
  inherit: no
        alice: rw (owner)
        bob: r

~/mnt-alice-volume/awesome.txt:
        alice: rw (owner)
        bob: r

NOTE: One could have relied on the --traverse option to grant read permission on all the directories leading to the target object. In other words, the following would have achieved the same result infinit acl --set --mode r --user bob --traverse --path ~/mnt-alice-volume/awesome.txt.

Bob should now be able to browse the volume's root directory and read its file. Note however that he should not be able to modify it since Alice did not grant Bob the permission to write the file:

Device C
$> infinit acl list --path ~/mnt-alice-volume/awesome.txt
~/mnt-alice-volume/awesome.txt:
        alice: rw (owner)
        bob: r
$> cat ~/mnt-alice-volume/awesome.txt
everything is
$> echo "or not" > ~/mnt-alice-volume/awesome.txt
zsh: permission denied: ~/mnt-alice-volume/awesome.txt

Download full shell script: get-started.sh.

$> infinit user delete --as alice --name alice --pull --purge

Diagnose Problems

The infinit doctor binary is provided to automatically analyze your environment and detect common issues for you to quickly understand why Infinit may not be behaving as expected. Issues may range from incorrect permissions on some files/directories, to a router blocking UDP packets and more. The easiest way to run infinit doctor is to use the --all so as to analyze the operarting system, environment variables, networking capabilities, configuration files etc.

$> infinit doctor all
CONFIGURATION INTEGRITY:
[OK] Storage resources
[OK] Networks
[OK] Volumes
[OK] Drives
[OK] Leftovers

SYSTEM SANITY:
[OK] Username
[OK] Space left
[OK] Environment
[OK] Permissions
[OK] FUSE

CONNECTIVITY:
[OK] Connection to https://beyond.infinit.sh
[OK] Local interfaces
[OK] NAT
[OK] Protocols

Go Further

Notice: Some features may not be entirely developed yet, please have a look at our roadmap to follow our advancement. You can also subscribe to our newsletter to get notified of our upcoming features.

You can now have a look at our Docker integrations, authorize more users to connect to the network, to contribute additional storage i.e scale up/out, make the network resilient through redundancy and invite non-tech-savvy users to join drives through a graphical user interface. You can also keep reading the Infinit documentation through examples of deployments and/or the reference documentation:

→ Deployment Examples → Docker Integrations → Reference Documentation

Any question, feedback?

Come talk to us! Whether you encounter a problem setting up your infrastructure, have a question or just to give us some feedback, we're never too far away:

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