Create a client node

Note

Estimated time is 15 minutes

To interact with tahoe-lafs services, you need to creat and start a client.

Note

Ignore the response Please add introducers ... The node cannot connect to a grid without it.

Create a simple client configuration:

$ tahoe --node-directory=client0 create-client \
--shares-happy=1 \
--shares-needed=1 \
--shares-total=1 \
--nickname=client0

Note

These options are explained in Client Configuration .

You will see the console output end with something like:

Prepare the client

Point the client to the storage node

For now, we will tell the client how to find server, using a static configuration setting. Create a ./client0/private/servers.yaml file in the client configuration directory:

$ nano ./client0/private/servers.yaml

When complete, the contents of the file will look something like this:

storage:
  v0-qacl3os464epv7olvwolv55tqlrimfj2bpwwjo43qfotlwxpfcsa:
    ann:
      nickname: storage0
      anonymous-storage-FURL: pb://wknlsj5cfrfogj7je2gjd2azakyf7amd@tcp:localhost:55316/iv6ilyybouwm4o5mbwhstduupkpyhiof

The value for storage: open the file storage0/node.pubkey and copy everything after pub-.

The value for anonymous-storage-FURL: is the entire content of ./storage0/private/storage.furl. This is also called the anonymous fURLs of the storage server.

Note

Static server settings are described at https://tahoe-lafs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/configuration.html#static-server-definitions

Start the client process

In the console window called client_node:

$ tahoe run client0/

The console output should include something like: 2024-09-10T13:25:33-0700 [-] TahoeLAFSSite starting on 3456 and end with - client running

In the console output, you will notice that the client runs two network connections:

  • A web app using a REST API on TCP port 3456

  • A protobuf style client using Foolscap on TCP port 57635

Verify the HTML client

Open the client’s web UI at http://localhost:3456

The landing page should show 1 of 1 storage servers connected, 0 introducers and 0 helpers. This verifies that the client can run Tahoe requests and that the storage node successfully responds.

Note

Congratulations on completing Step 2 !