{"id":338,"date":"2014-12-26T17:00:23","date_gmt":"2014-12-26T16:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.gentoo.org\/mgorny\/?p=338"},"modified":"2014-12-26T18:54:14","modified_gmt":"2014-12-26T17:54:14","slug":"pshs-the-awesome-file-sharing-tool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.gentoo.org\/mgorny\/2014\/12\/26\/pshs-the-awesome-file-sharing-tool\/","title":{"rendered":"pshs \u2014 the\u00a0awesome file sharing tool"},"content":{"rendered":"

For a\u00a0long time I lacked a\u00a0proper tool to quickly share a\u00a0few files for a\u00a0short time. The\u00a0tools I was able to find either required some setup, installing client counterparts or\u00a0sending my files to a\u00a0third-party host. So I felt the\u00a0need to write something new.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0HTTP protocol seemed an\u00a0obvious choice. Relatively simple, efficient, with some client software installed almost everywhere. So I took HTTP::Server::Simple<\/a> (I think) and\u00a0wrote the\u00a0first version of publish.pl<\/em> script. I added a\u00a0few features to that script but it never felt good enough\u2026<\/p>\n

So back in\u00a02011 I decided to reboot the\u00a0project. This time I decided to use C and\u00a0libevent<\/a>, and\u00a0that’s how pshs<\/a> came into being. With some development occuring in\u00a0the\u00a0last three years, lately I started adding new features aiming to turn it into something really awesome.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

So what pshs is? It’s a\u00a0simple, zero-configuration command-line HTTP server to share files. You pass a\u00a0list of\u00a0files and\u00a0it lets you share them.<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t\t\"Screenshot
\n\t<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

But what really makes pshs special are the features:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. it shares only the\u00a0files specified on the\u00a0command-line \u2014 no need for extra configuration, moving files to separate directories etc. It simply returns 404 for any path not specified on the\u00a0command-line, whether it exists or not.<\/li>\n
  2. Full, working Range support. You can resume interrupted downloads and\u00a0seek freely. Confirmed that playing a\u00a0movie remotely works just fine.<\/li>\n
  3. Unless told otherwise, it chooses a\u00a0random port to use. You don’t have to decide on one, you have use pshs alongside regular HTTP servers and\u00a0other services, and\u00a0you can freely run multiple instances of\u00a0pshs if you need to. TODO: perform port search until free port is found on\u00a0the\u00a0interface having external IP.<\/li>\n
  4. Netlink and\u00a0UPnP support provide the\u00a0best means to obtain the\u00a0external IP. If\u00a0you have one on\u00a0local interface, pshs will find and\u00a0print it. If\u00a0you don’t, it will try to\u00a0enable port forwarding using UPnP and\u00a0obtain the\u00a0external IP from a\u00a0UPnP-compliant router.<\/li>\n
  5. QRCode printing (idea copied from systemd). Want to text a\u00a0link to your files? Just scan the\u00a0code!<\/li>\n
  6. MIME-type guessing. Well, it’s not that special but makes sure your images show up as imagines in\u00a0a\u00a0web browser rather than opaque files that can only be saved.<\/li>\n
  7. Zero-configuration SSL\/TLS support \u2014 the\u00a0keys and\u00a0a\u00a0self-signed certificate with correct public IP are generated at\u00a0startup. While this is far from perfect (think of all the\u00a0browsers complaining about self-signed certificates), it at\u00a0least gives you the\u00a0possibility of\u00a0using encryption. It also prints the\u00a0certificate fingerprint if you’d like to verify the\u00a0authenticity.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I have also a few nice ideas in\u00a0TODO, yet unsure which of\u00a0them will be\u00a0actually implemented:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. HTTP digest authentication support \u2014 in\u00a0case you wanted some real security on\u00a0the\u00a0files you share.<\/li>\n
    2. Download progress reporting \u2014 to let you know if and\u00a0for how long do you need to keep the\u00a0server up. Sadly, this does not look easy given the\u00a0current libevent design.<\/li>\n
    3. ncurses UI \u2014 to provide visual means for\u00a0progress reporting :). Additional possibilities include keeping server URL on\u00a0screen, a\u00a0status line, and\u00a0possibly scrolling logs.<\/li>\n
    4. GTK+ UI with a\u00a0tray icon and\u00a0notification daemon support \u2014 to provide better desktop integration for\u00a0sharing files from\u00a0your favorite file manager.<\/li>\n
    5. Recursive directory sharing \u2014 currently you have to list all files explicitly. This may include better directory indexes since currently pshs creates only one index of all files.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Which of\u00a0those features would you find useful? What other features you’d like to see in\u00a0pshs?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      For a\u00a0long time I lacked a\u00a0proper tool to quickly share a\u00a0few files for a\u00a0short time. The\u00a0tools I was able to find either required some setup, installing client counterparts or\u00a0sending my files to a\u00a0third-party host. So I felt the\u00a0need to write something new. The\u00a0HTTP protocol seemed an\u00a0obvious choice. Relatively simple, efficient, with some client software installed … Continue reading “pshs \u2014 the\u00a0awesome file sharing tool”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":137,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gentoo.org\/mgorny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gentoo.org\/mgorny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gentoo.org\/mgorny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gentoo.org\/mgorny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/137"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gentoo.org\/mgorny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gentoo.org\/mgorny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":344,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gentoo.org\/mgorny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338\/revisions\/344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gentoo.org\/mgorny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gentoo.org\/mgorny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gentoo.org\/mgorny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}