gitlab.com/jokerrs1/Sia@v1.3.2/README.md (about) 1 # [](http://sia.tech) v1.3.2 (Capricorn) 2 3 [](https://travis-ci.org/NebulousLabs/Sia) 4 [](https://godoc.org/github.com/NebulousLabs/Sia) 5 [](https://goreportcard.com/report/github.com/NebulousLabs/Sia) 6 7 Sia is a new decentralized cloud storage platform that radically alters the 8 landscape of cloud storage. By leveraging smart contracts, client-side 9 encryption, and sophisticated redundancy (via Reed-Solomon codes), Sia allows 10 users to safely store their data with hosts that they do not know or trust. 11 The result is a cloud storage marketplace where hosts compete to offer the 12 best service at the lowest price. And since there is no barrier to entry for 13 hosts, anyone with spare storage capacity can join the network and start 14 making money. 15 16  17 18 Traditional cloud storage has a number of shortcomings. Users are limited to a 19 few big-name offerings: Google, Microsoft, Amazon. These companies have little 20 incentive to encrypt your data or make it easy to switch services later. Their 21 code is closed-source, and they can lock you out of your account at any time. 22 23 We believe that users should own their data. Sia achieves this by replacing 24 the traditional monolithic cloud storage provider with a blockchain and a 25 swarm of hosts, each of which stores an encrypted fragment of your data. Since 26 the fragments are redundant, no single host can hold your data hostage: if 27 they jack up their price or go offline, you can simply download from a 28 different host. In other words, trust is removed from the equation, and 29 switching to a different host is painless. Stripped of these unfair 30 advantages, hosts must compete solely on the quality and price of the storage 31 they provide. 32 33 Sia can serve as a replacement for personal backups, bulk archiving, content 34 distribution, and more. For developers, Sia is a low-cost alternative to 35 Amazon S3. Storage on Sia is a full order of magnitude cheaper than on S3, 36 with comparable bandwidth, latency, and durability. Sia works best for static 37 content, especially media like videos, music, and photos. 38 39 Distributing data across many hosts automatically confers several advantages. 40 The most obvious is that, just like BitTorrent, uploads and downloads are 41 highly parallel. Given enough hosts, Sia can saturate your bandwidth. Another 42 advantage is that your data is spread across a wide geographic area, reducing 43 latency and safeguarding your data against a range of attacks. 44 45 It is important to note that users have full control over which hosts they 46 use. You can tailor your host set for minimum latency, lowest price, widest 47 geographic coverage, or even a strict whitelist of IP addresses or public 48 keys. 49 50 At the core of Sia is a blockchain that closely resembles Bitcoin. 51 Transactions are conducted in Siacoin, a cryptocurrency. The blockchain is 52 what allows Sia to enforce its smart contracts without relying on centralized 53 authority. To acquire siacoins, use an exchange such as [Bittrex](https://bittrex.com), [Yunbi](https://yunbi.com), or 54 [Bisq](https://www.bisq.io). 55 56 To get started with Sia, check out the guides below: 57 58 - [How to Store Data on Sia](https://blog.sia.tech/getting-started-with-private-decentralized-cloud-storage-c9565dc8c854) 59 - [How to Become a Sia Host](https://blog.sia.tech/how-to-run-a-host-on-sia-2159ebc4725) 60 - [Using the Sia API](https://blog.sia.tech/api-quickstart-guide-f1d160c05235) 61 62 63 Usage 64 ----- 65 66 Sia is ready for use with small sums of money and non-critical files, but 67 until the network has a more proven track record, we advise against using it 68 as a sole means of storing important data. 69 70 This release comes with 2 binaries, siad and siac. siad is a background 71 service, or "daemon," that runs the Sia protocol and exposes an HTTP API on 72 port 9980. siac is a command-line client that can be used to interact with 73 siad in a user-friendly way. There is also a graphical client, [Sia-UI](https://github.com/NebulousLabs/Sia-UI), which 74 is the preferred way of using Sia for most users. For interested developers, 75 the siad API is documented [here](doc/API.md). 76 77 siad and siac are run via command prompt. On Windows, you can just double- 78 click siad.exe if you don't need to specify any command-line arguments. 79 Otherwise, navigate to its containing folder and click File->Open command 80 prompt. Then, start the siad service by entering `siad` and pressing Enter. 81 The command prompt may appear to freeze; this means siad is waiting for 82 requests. Windows users may see a warning from the Windows Firewall; be sure 83 to check both boxes ("Private networks" and "Public networks") and click 84 "Allow access." You can now run `siac` (in a separate command prompt) or Sia- 85 UI to interact with siad. From here, you can send money, upload and download 86 files, and advertise yourself as a host. 87 88 Building From Source 89 -------------------- 90 91 To build from source, [Go 1.10 must be installed](https://golang.org/doc/install) 92 on the system. Make sure your `$GOPATH` is set, and then simply use `go get`: 93 94 ``` 95 go get -u github.com/NebulousLabs/Sia/... 96 ``` 97 98 This will download the Sia repo to your `$GOPATH/src` folder and install the 99 `siad` and `siac` binaries in your `$GOPATH/bin` folder. 100 101 To stay up-to-date, run the previous `go get` command again. Alternatively, you 102 can use the Makefile provided in this repo. Run `git pull origin master` to 103 pull the latest changes, and `make release-std` to build the new binaries. You 104 can also run `make test` and `make test-long` to run the short and full test 105 suites, respectively. Finally, `make cover` will generate code coverage reports 106 for each package; they are stored in the `cover` folder and can be viewed in 107 your browser.