pithos.sia itself is the website, so people had no obvious address to
type for the app. /app (and /app/<page>) now opens Pithos in Theseus and
through the website's Open my Pithos; it is no longer read as an S3 user
named app.
Pithos runs on the user's computer, so the pithos.sia website could only
describe it. Two ways in now:
- Open in browser (Theseus, desktop) opens the current page in the default
browser with a one-time sign-in link (60 s, single use), unlike the
host's reusable ?t= link.
- The website links to http://127.0.0.1:47621/open?path=/<user>/<drive>.
Any page or local program could follow that link, so the host first
asks the user in its own window (a native dialog on the desktop,
Theseus's approval prompt with the vault unlocked). Only loopback Host
names are accepted, one question at a time, and the website learns
nothing either way.
Sessions started this way are marked external, so the browser does not
get host-only controls such as Back to sidebar.
With Linux builds joining Windows in the release list, the check must only
compare builds for its own system, and the link must fetch the Linux
AppImage (or, later, the macOS dmg) rather than the Windows installer.
s3d's Linux defaults (/etc/s3d/s3d.yml, /var/lib/s3d) are for a system
service; a desktop user cannot write them, so the desktop app could
never create its config. When no system config exists and those places
are not writable, Pithos uses ~/.config/s3d/s3d.yml and
~/.local/share/s3d (XDG), and writes the directory into the new config
so s3d itself, started with S3D_CONFIG_FILE, uses the same place.
Sia Storage never tells an app who signed in, so accounts showed up as
"Sia account" until someone found the label field. The approval step,
where people are signing in to Sia Storage anyway, now asks for that
email and saves it as the label; the sidebar card names the account the
moment approval lands.
The desktop app had no way to learn about updates. Its footer now checks
Silent Mode's release list (through the local server, so the console's
CSP stays same-origin) and offers the matching installer or portable
build.
Until now the desktop app only ran from a source checkout, so Pithos was
really usable only inside Theseus. electron-builder (the version Theseus
uses) now makes an NSIS installer and a portable exe; s3d is still fetched
on first run by the checksum-checked installer, so the app stays small and
never ships an s3d it did not verify. Icons are rendered from ui/icon.svg.
Quitting also no longer waits on idle keep-alive sockets before exiting.
A share link from s3d only opened where s3d is reachable, which on a
default setup is this computer. Pithos now makes a Sia shared-object URL
for the file the way the Sia SDK does (the indexer's sealed object, its
data key opened with a key derived from s3d's app key) and registers it
at navigate.st, which streams the file from Sia hosts for anyone, with
seeking, even with this computer off. A shared-object URL reads that one
object and nothing else in the account. Files still waiting on this
computer are uploaded first. A folder gets a page with its files and a
player. Settings lists the links, each one can be switched off.
sia-share is the navigate.st side, in Go on the Sia SDK: it keeps short
ids, checks every URL against an allowed indexer, serves files sandboxed
so a shared page cannot run script on navigate.st, and caps sign-ups per
address and downloads per link per day. Host reads are paid by its own
app on Silent Mode's indexer account.
s3d keeps small uploads in a local buffer until about 40 MB has built
up, so a handful of files could sit there for months, only on this
computer, while the Overview said 0 B on Sia. Overview and Drives now
say how many files are waiting, that they are only on this computer
until then, and offer Upload now; automatic upload of leftovers (after
10 minutes with no new uploads) is on unless turned off.
After adding another account, opening a page failed with "failed to open
database: table users already exists": a users list ran while s3d was
starting, and both set up the fresh database. A start now waits for
running commands to finish, and commands wait while s3d is starting.
Renaming refused on hosted drives because encrypted names and contents are
bound to their path. The encrypting client now renames itself: readable
files keep s3d's server-side copy, the rest are decrypted and encrypted again
for their new place. A drive with shared folders or links is not renamed,
since its rules belong to the old name.
Free space is forwarded to the server, whose s3d answers for its own
folder, instead of reporting nothing. space.js now builds on sia-account.js,
so BLAKE2b and the indexer request signing exist once.
S3 has no rename, so files, folders and drives kept the name they were
made with. s3d copies objects in its own database (the copy points at
the same data on Sia), so a rename is a copy to the new name and a
delete of the old: quick, and it uses no extra storage. A drive rename
makes a new bucket, moves every file, rebuilds public access for the new
name (a policy names its bucket) and removes the old one. Names that
already exist are refused. Drives on Silent Mode encrypt with keys tied
to each name, so their client gets no rename until it can re-encrypt.
The drives page and Overview now show how much of the Sia account is
used and how much is free. s3d does not report it; the indexer's
GET /account does, signed with the app key s3d registered (read from its
database for this one request, BLAKE2b-256 + Ed25519 as indexd expects).
An .html file in a drive could only be read as source. It can now also be
opened as a web page in a new tab (Theseus tab, browser tab, or the system
browser from the desktop app), with the CSS, images, scripts and pages
beside it loading as they would from a website.
The page is served under a sandbox CSP without allow-same-origin, so its
scripts run in an opaque origin: they cannot read the Pithos session or
reach its API, only the files of the folder the page link covers. Links
are random, last an hour from last use (12 hours at most), and refuse
paths that leave the folder. Pages decrypt on the fly for drives hosted
on Silent Mode.
The new site mode recognises a path by the s3d's user names. With drives on
Silent Mode the local s3d has none, so it now asks the server for them;
otherwise pithos.sia/<user> links stop working once drives move.
Full page opened Pithos at a loopback address such as
127.0.0.1:58678/#/buckets/music-house, which means nothing to anyone
reading it and changes every launch. In Theseus the app now lives at
pithos.sia/<S3 user>/<drive>/<folder>, with pages at pithos.sia/settings,
/account and so on; the root page stays the pithos.sia website.
The add-on answers those paths through Theseus's new site routes. It
passes the session to the control server only for pithos.sia's own
requests and the address bar, never another site's fetch, and only
while the vault is unlocked, as the sidebar panel requires. The server
answers its own files, pages and existing S3 users and reports
anything else as not its own, so the website answers it. The sidebar
and the web console keep #/ addresses; an older Theseus still gets the
loopback address.
Pithos moved to 0.3.9 on master while hosting was built here, so the version
stays master's until the next release is cut. The hosted pieces were carried
into master's new layout: Share for folders lives in the item menu, files the
server can read keep their mark in every view, and other accounts show their
key and cannot be switched back to when they moved to Silent Mode.
A person with several sia.storage accounts (or phrases) could not tell
which one a Pithos s3d used: s3d records only the indexer URL. Pithos now
reads the app key s3d stores after login and asks the indexer, with a
request signed the way indexd's app API expects, for the account's key,
storage used and last use. Those match what sia.storage shows for the app,
and the page explains that the login and the phrase together decide the
account. Earlier accounts set aside on this computer show their key too.
A server-sent file list could name paths outside the s3d folder (or the key
file in it), and a failed move back deleted every listed path. Transfers now
accept only s3d data paths, check all of them before writing, never
overwrite, and clean up only what they wrote.
A lost reply could lose or fork the drives: move-up and move-down now ask the
server who holds them before touching the local copy, and once the server is
told to release, the local copy is never removed (the release is retried).
The gateway no longer lets one account route another's access key id, refuses
. and .. in shared-key paths, strips presign parameters before re-signing,
counts upload size on disk, stops s3d before it can be restarted mid-move, and
claims sign-up proofs before checking them. The key file is never replaced
when unreadable, a local edit removes the older encrypted copy, listing pages
no longer repeat, and data hashes stream instead of loading whole files.
Pithos only updated when Theseus happened to check the extension
channel on a restart, and nothing showed which version was running.
A footer now shows pithos.sia and the version, as Aegis's does. In
Theseus it checks the channel when Pithos opens and every six hours;
a newer release shows as "↑ vX", one click downloads and verifies it,
and a second asks Theseus to restart and apply it. ↻ checks on demand.
Settings gains a sign-in, sign-up and move card for Silent Mode; Overview,
the status pill, Access and Share follow the server when drives are hosted.
Folders get their own Share (public, or a key with read/add/edit rights),
since per-folder access is what hosting adds over a bare s3d. Files the
server can still read are marked, and Access can encrypt the ones that
predate the move.
s3d binds one Sia account per process, so the server runs one s3d per
person (pithos-hosted), started on demand and flushed and stopped when idle.
Only the connected s3d data folder moves between PC and server; the Sia
recovery phrase never leaves the PC and nothing is re-uploaded to Sia.
Because the server holds the connection key, local Pithos encrypts names and
contents before they leave the machine, with keys from the Theseus vault (or
a local key file elsewhere). What s3d cannot do on its own, the gateway now
enforces: public folders, expiring share links and S3 keys for other people
limited to one folder with read, add-only or edit rights. Files those reach
are stored readable, since visitors have no key, and go back to encrypted
when the rule is removed. Sign-up needs a BNS name signature, a deposit or
an invite, with a per-IP limit.
Hosted drives sit on a server that holds the Sia connection key, so private
files must be unreadable there. Names are encrypted per path segment with
AES-SIV (deterministic, so folders and prefix listing still work on the
server) and bodies with chunked AES-256-GCM bound to drive and path, with
sizes computable both ways so uploads stream and range reads stay cheap.
s3d only sends full ~40 MB blocks to Sia, so a handful of small files can
stay in the local buffer forever (seen: 63 objects, 6 MiB, nothing on Sia).
An opt-in setting now flushes once the pending set has not changed for N
minutes, judged from s3d's upload stats so uploads from any S3 client count.
Failed flushes back off up to an hour instead of hammering a broken indexer.
A bucket is the top level you put folders into, so it reads better as a drive than as a folder: the menu and page say Drives, each tile is a drive icon with the files and size it holds (counted in the background, up to 20,000 files, then shown as N+), and the subtitle says S3 apps call it a bucket. Folders inside a drive stay folders. New usage endpoint: GET /api/s3/:user/buckets/:bucket/usage.
- s3d kept stopping: Pithos stopped it whenever the extension restarted
(every update, every Theseus quit) and never started it again. Start
and Stop now record what the user wants (pithos-prefs.json beside
s3d.yml); Pithos starts s3d with Theseus and when opened, and retries a
crash up to three times in ten minutes, logging why it skips. The
Buckets page also redraws when s3d starts or stops; it used to keep
saying "not running".
- One view at a time: "Full page" opens Pithos in a tab and closes the
left panel; the tab has "Back to sidebar", which reopens the panel.
- Every new user gets a bucket of their own, named after them (lowercase,
hyphens) or as typed in the New user dialog.
- Buckets show as folder tiles. New folders are kept while empty with the
usual "<name>/" marker object.
- A viewer: images, audio (mp3 and friends), video and text open inside
Pithos, with Share and Download. The Theseus panel uses 10-minute,
reusable, inline view links so players can make range requests.
- The Access dialog says what s3d cannot do: per-folder public access and
write rights for others are not supported, only whole-bucket public read.
"Acting as" read like a choice of Sia account; it picks an S3 user on
this s3d, and every user shares the one Sia account the s3d is connected
to. So:
- The picker is "S3 user", with a tooltip saying all users share one Sia
account; Buckets explains what a bucket is.
- Buckets and the Overview show "Sia account: <label> (indexer)". Pithos
cannot see the account's email, so the Sia connection page lets the
user label it (kept in pithos.json beside the s3d data).
- "Switch Sia account" stops s3d and moves its data (connection, users,
keys, buckets, upload buffer) into previous-account-<stamp>/ next to
s3d.yml, never deleting it; the guide then connects another account.
It warns about uploads still waiting for Sia and offers a flush, and
refuses while another s3d serves the config.
- "Earlier Sia accounts" lists those folders with Restore, which sets the
current account aside the same way and swaps the old one back.
Also: a fresh connect now records which indexer it used, and a "not
connected" check is re-run after 30 s so a login made outside Pithos
shows up.
The SigV4 encoder kept '/' unescaped in object paths by swapping in a
"never matches" regex (/$^/) for query values, but that regex matches the
empty string, so every empty query value went out as "/": prefix= became
prefix=/ and ?policy became ?policy=/. The request then no longer matched
what was signed, and listing any bucket or reading its policy failed
against s3d. Bucket listing and creation carry no query, so they worked.
Verified end to end against s3d (list, folders, upload, download, public
policy, folder delete) and against the aws cli; two regression tests.
First run now lands on a step-by-step guide instead of the overview:
create a Sia Storage account (link out, Pithos never sees the password),
install s3d, choose or generate the recovery phrase, connect, start the
gateway and create the first access key, with Back/Next on every step.
The connect step opens the indexer's approval page on its own and moves
on as soon as the approval lands; where a browser blocks the pop-up it
says so and makes the button the primary action.
Hosts without node-pty (the Theseus add-on) now fetch the one platform
package they need from the npm registry on first login, pinned to its
published sha512 integrity, so the approval link can be read there too.
The console-window login stays only as the fallback when that fails.
A retry after a failed connect with an existing phrase goes back to the
phrase step: the phrase is not kept, and a blank one would make s3d
generate a new one.
In Theseus the console opened as a tab at http://127.0.0.1:<port>, a raw
local address in the URL bar. It is now a left-sidebar panel instead,
loading the add-on's own ui/index.html: API calls, uploads and live
events cross the add-on IPC bridge and the add-on forwards them to the
control server with an internal session. Downloads go to Theseus's
download manager through single-use 60-second links. The panel can widen
to full window or open as a tab.
The core gains internalSession() and downloadUrl() for that; web and
desktop hosts keep talking HTTP as before. Grids now shrink to fit, so
narrow hosts never scroll sideways.
s3d is driven entirely by a CLI and a two-route admin API, which keeps
Sia storage out of reach for anyone who does not live in a terminal.
Pithos wraps it: install the pinned s3d release (checksum verified),
start/stop and logs, indexer login, users and access keys, a bucket and
object browser with share links and public-read policies, and the
upload pipeline stats.
One control server (core/) serves one UI (ui/), and three hosts run it:
a web console, an Electron desktop window and a Theseus add-on, so a
feature lands everywhere at once. The server binds loopback, rejects
foreign Host headers, and signs views in with a one-time secret that
becomes a SameSite=Strict cookie. s3d login reads the recovery phrase
with term.ReadPassword, so it is driven through a pty, with a console
window fallback where the pty module is not shipped.
