Pithos documentation

Pithos is a control panel for s3d, the Sia Foundation's S3 gateway. With it you connect s3d to a Sia storage account, create S3 users and access keys, keep files in drives, play and share them, and watch uploads reach the Sia network. Everything Pithos does can also be done by hand with the s3d command line; this page explains both, so you can set it up yourself or hand the page to an AI assistant and let it guide you.

This page is also published as plain Markdown at pithos.sia/docs/pithos-docs.md for AI assistants.

#How the pieces fit

Data flow: your app or Pithos → s3d on your computer → (encrypted, erasure-coded) → Sia hosts, tracked by your indexer account.

Two things to know early:

1. s3d waits before uploading small files. It packs uploads into blocks of about 40 MB before sending them to Sia. Until a block is full, files exist only on your computer. Pithos shows a "files waiting to upload" banner and uploads leftovers automatically after 10 quiet minutes (Settings › automatic upload); s3d flush or Upload now sends them immediately.
2. 127.0.0.1 means "this computer". s3d listens on 127.0.0.1:8000 by default, so links that start with it work only on the machine running s3d. Other devices cannot open them.

#Getting started (Pithos in Theseus)

Pithos comes with Theseus, the Silent Mode browser. Open it from the Pithos icon in the left-hand strip.

1. Unlock. Pithos opens only while your Theseus password vault is unlocked (PIN or master password), because it shows access-key secrets.
2. Accounts › Get started. The guide walks through each step:
   1. Sia Storage account: sign up or sign in at sia.storage (the guide opens it for you). Tick "I have created my Sia Storage account and I am signed in", or choose your own indexer.
   2. Install s3d: Pithos downloads the pinned s3d release and checks its SHA-256.
   3. Recovery phrase: choose From my vault (Pithos derives the phrase from your Theseus vault, so there is nothing to write down) or use your own 12-word phrase.
   4. Connect: Pithos runs s3d login and opens the indexer's approval page. Approve the app named S3d there.
   5. Start gateway: s3d starts and keeps running (Pithos restarts it after a crash and when Theseus starts).
   6. Access key: Pithos creates your first S3 user, its drive and an access key. Save the key (Copy, or Save to encrypted file).
3. Drives. Open your drive and drag files in.

Which Sia account you end up with depends on two things together: the indexer login that approved the connection and the recovery phrase. The same phrase approved from two different logins makes two different accounts.

#The Pithos screen

The menu is in setup order. In the narrow sidebar it is the ☰ button at the top right; the ⤢ button next to it opens Pithos as a full page.

#Accounts

• Your Sia accounts at the top: the account in use (with its free space) and any accounts set aside on this computer, each with Switch to, plus Add another account.
• Add another account sets the current account aside (its users, keys and drives are kept on this computer, nothing is deleted), stops s3d and runs the guide for the new account. Files already on Sia stay in the old account; switch back any time.
• Account label: Pithos cannot see the login email, so name the account yourself (for example the email you approved the connection with).
• Which Sia account this is: the account key, app name, storage used, last use and indexer, read from the indexer.

#Overview

• Gateway: s3d's state (running, stopped, crashed, external), endpoint, version, config and data folders; Start, Restart, Stop.
• Upload pipeline: pending (waiting on this computer), on Sia, awaiting pin, open multipart uploads, failed and orphaned objects; Flush now.
• Free space: used and free storage on your Sia account.

#Users & keys

• Create a user (and its drive, named after it), delete a user.
• Create and revoke access keys. Each key shows ready-made settings for the AWS CLI, rclone and environment variables.
• Save to encrypted file / Open saved credentials: keep keys in a password-protected .pithoskey file (in Theseus it can be sealed with your vault instead).

#Drives

• Views: Icons (with picture previews), List, Details. Each page remembers its view.
• Upload: drag files in or use Upload. Single uploads up to 5 GiB (1 GiB from the sidebar).
• New folder, Rename… (files, folders and whole drives; a rename is an instant server-side copy, nothing is uploaded again), Delete.
• Viewer: pictures, video and text open in place; music plays in the player at the bottom, which keeps playing while you browse and moves on through the folder (volume, seek, media keys).
• Share…: a public link at https://navigate.st/sia/<id>/<name> that anyone can open on any device, even with this computer off, for 1 month, 1 year or 5 years. On a folder, ⋯ › Public link… makes a page with the files in it (not sub-folders). Files still waiting on this computer are uploaded to Sia first. Settings › Public links lists them; Switch off stops a link at once. Under "Link for this computer, or your own server" is the old signed s3d link (1 hour to 7 days), which opens only where s3d is reachable.
• Access…: private, public read, or public read + list, for the whole drive (s3d cannot make a single folder public). Change it any time.
• Free space line under the account name.

#Settings

Edits s3d.yml; s3d reads it at start, so restart to apply. Also: automatic upload of leftovers (on by default, after 10 minutes with no new uploads) and where your drives live.

#Logs

Live output of s3d and Pithos's own notes (why it started or did not start s3d, flushes, errors).

#Addresses, updates and the lock

• In Theseus, the full page lives at pithos.sia/<user>/<drive>/<folder> (and pithos.sia/settings, pithos.sia/account …). The bare pithos.sia is this website.
• The footer shows the version. ↻ checks for updates; a newer version shows as "↑ vX". Click it to install; recent Theseus versions apply it without a restart, older ones offer a restart.
• When the vault locks, Pithos locks too; Unlock asks for your PIN.

#Drives on Silent Mode

By default s3d runs on your computer. Settings › Where your drives live can move it to Silent Mode's server (s3.silentmode.st) instead. It keeps working with your computer off, other devices can reach it, and the Pithos screens stay the same.

• Still your own Sia account. Only s3d's data folder (its database and the files still waiting) moves; nothing already on Sia is uploaded again, and the recovery phrase never leaves your computer. Moving back works the same way.
• Encrypted before it leaves. Pithos encrypts file names and contents on your computer, with keys from your Theseus vault (or a key file beside s3d.yml that you should back up).
• Sharing a plain s3d cannot do. Public folders, expiring share links, and S3 keys for other people limited to one folder with read, add-only or edit rights. Shared files are stored readable, because the people they are for have no key; stop sharing and Pithos encrypts them again.
• Signing up needs a signature from the wallet that owns a BNS name: one hosted account per name.

Public folders anyone can open. Make a folder public (⋯ › Share… on a drive on Silent Mode) and it gets an address like https://navigate.st/s3/<your-bns-name>/<drive>/<folder>/: a page with its files, small pictures and a player, which works in any browser. A single file is at the same address plus its name. Tools can add ?json to a folder address for a JSON listing.

#Other ways to run Pithos

#Web console

Copynpm install
node bin/pithos-web.js

It prints a one-time sign-in link for http://127.0.0.1:8700. Options:

Remote access: PITHOS_PASSWORD='long random secret' node bin/pithos-web.js --listen 0.0.0.0:8700 --allow-host pithos.example.org, behind a TLS reverse proxy.

#Desktop app

Copynpm run desktop

The window signs itself in; quitting stops s3d.

#Which s3d Pithos manages

The same one a hand-run s3d uses: S3D_CONFIG_FILE if set, otherwise %APPDATA%\s3d\s3d.yml (Windows), ~/Library/Application Support/s3d/s3d.yml (macOS), /etc/s3d/s3d.yml (Linux). If another s3d already serves that config, Pithos shows it as external and does not start a second one.

#s3d on the command line

Pithos needs s3d v0.2.0 or newer. Download it from the s3d releases on GitHub (SiaFoundation/s3d), or let Pithos install it.

#Commands

#A full setup by hand

Copys3d config                 # set addresses, admin password, data folder
s3d login                  # indexer URL (https://sia.storage) + 12-word phrase, then approve
s3d                        # start the gateway (leave running, or install as a service)
s3d users create alice     # in another terminal
s3d keys create alice      # note the access key ID and secret
aws configure --profile s3d          # paste the key, region us-east-1
aws --profile s3d --endpoint-url http://127.0.0.1:8000 s3 mb s3://alice-files
aws --profile s3d --endpoint-url http://127.0.0.1:8000 s3 cp photo.jpg s3://alice-files/photos/
s3d flush                  # send it to Sia now instead of waiting for a full block

Keep the recovery phrase offline. It is the only way to reconnect this storage on another machine or after a reinstall; never paste it into a chat or a website you did not open yourself.

#Where things live

Environment variables: S3D_CONFIG_FILE (use this config file), S3D_DATA_DIR (data folder).

#s3d.yml

CopyapiAddress: 127.0.0.1:8000        # S3 API
apiHTTPSAddress: ""               # optional TLS listener (self-signed)
adminAddress: 127.0.0.1:8001      # admin API (must differ from the S3 addresses)
adminPassword: change-me          # required for status/flush
directory: /var/lib/s3d           # data folder
sia:
  diskUsageLimit: 10737418240     # local buffer limit in bytes (default 10 GiB)
  uploadThreads: 4                # parallel uploads to Sia
  dataShards: 10                  # erasure coding: data shards per slab
  parityShards: 20                # recovery shards per slab (10-of-30 by default)
s3:
  hostBases: []                   # host names for virtual-host style buckets
log:
  stdout: { enabled: true, level: info }
  file: { enabled: true, level: info }

#Admin API

HTTP Basic auth with an empty user name and adminPassword:

Copycurl -u :change-me http://127.0.0.1:8001/stats/uploads

#Using drives from other apps

Any S3 app works. Use the endpoint http://127.0.0.1:8000, region us-east-1, path-style addressing, and an access key from Users & keys.

AWS CLI (~/.aws/config):

Copy[profile s3d]
region = us-east-1
endpoint_url = http://127.0.0.1:8000
s3 =
  addressing_style = path

Copyaws --profile s3d s3 ls
aws --profile s3d s3 sync ./music s3://my-drive/music
aws --profile s3d s3 presign s3://my-drive/music/song.mp3 --expires-in 3600

rclone (rclone config, or ~/.config/rclone/rclone.conf):

Copy[s3d]
type = s3
provider = Other
access_key_id = YOUR_ACCESS_KEY_ID
secret_access_key = YOUR_SECRET_KEY
endpoint = http://127.0.0.1:8000
region = us-east-1
force_path_style = true

Copyrclone ls s3d:my-drive
rclone copy ./photos s3d:my-drive/photos --progress

Environment variables for SDKs and tools: AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID, AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY, AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=us-east-1, AWS_ENDPOINT_URL=http://127.0.0.1:8000.

#Common tasks

• Give an app its own key. Users & keys › create a user for the app (or use yours) › Create key. Revoke it later without touching your other keys.
• Share one file or folder with anyone. ⋯ › Share… › Create public link. The link reads only that file from your Sia account; nothing else in the account is exposed.
• Make a whole drive public. Keep the files in a drive of their own and set Access › Public read. Files are then at http://<s3d address>/<drive>/<path>. On a default setup that address is reachable only from this computer; for other people s3d needs a public address (for example behind your own server and a TLS proxy).
• Rename or move. ⋯ › Rename… on a file, folder or drive. Renaming a drive changes its name for S3 apps too.
• Back up. Keep the recovery phrase offline (or use the vault-derived phrase and back up the Theseus vault). Optionally POST /snapshots to keep a copy of s3d's database on Sia.
• Move to another computer. Install s3d, run s3d login with the same indexer login and the same phrase, then restore the database snapshot or recreate users and keys.

#Troubleshooting

#Limits

• Public access is per drive, read-only for others; s3d has no folder-level rules or write rights for other people.
• Single uploads are capped at 5 GiB (multipart uploads from S3 tools work for larger files).
• Signed s3d links and public drives reach other people only when s3d has a public address; navigate.st/sia public links do not need one.
• navigate.st/sia links have a daily download cap per link, and anyone with the link can read the file: it is decrypted on navigate.st to stream it.
• Folder-level sharing and rights for other people need drives on Silent Mode (see that section); a plain s3d cannot do them.

#For AI assistants

You are helping someone run s3d (the Sia S3 gateway), optionally through Pithos. Facts to rely on:

• s3d v0.2.0+, S3 API on 127.0.0.1:8000, admin API on 127.0.0.1:8001 (Basic auth, empty user, adminPassword), region us-east-1, path-style addressing.
• Setup order: s3d config → s3d login (indexer URL + 12-word phrase, approve the "S3d" app at the indexer) → run s3d → s3d users create → s3d keys create → use any S3 client.
• Small files wait locally until a ~40 MB block fills; s3d flush or POST /objects/flush uploads them now.
• Buckets ("drives") can be private, public read, or public read + list; nothing finer.
• Config lookup: S3D_CONFIG_FILE, else the OS default path listed above.

Rules: never ask the user to paste their recovery phrase or secret keys into the conversation; have them type secrets only into s3d or Pithos on their own machine. Prefer read-only checks (s3d status, s3d users list, aws s3 ls) before changing anything, and confirm before deleting users, keys, drives or files.