Documentation resources for dat 1.0 release candidate 1 and the surrounding ecosystem.
npm install -g dat
Dat is a peer to peer file sharing tool. To share data, first cd into a directory you want to share, and type:
$ dat link
This will create a link, that looks like dat://.... This is a unique hash, generated by the contents of the files (including those in subdirectories) inside the current directory. Dat ignores hidden files.
Your output might look something like this:
$ dat link
Scanning folder, found 98 files in 5 directories. 47.12 MB total.
dat://a9933c3d00e1134e5814a0fe2b0f1166885f523dfe0d135a39a2ca4b43840d83
Serving data (1 connection(s))
The data will now available on the Internet. If I want to share this data with someone else, I'll need to open port 3282 (DATA) on my local network.
On another computer, I can type:
dat dat://a9933c3d00e1134e5814a0fe2b0f1166885f523dfe0d135a39a2ca4b43840d83
And the files will be downloaded inside of the current directory. The process will stay open, re-hosting the data to ensure redundancy of the data.
If you change any file inside the directory, you will get a different link. Each link is unique to the file list and data contents inside each file.
Everything about the filesystem is replicated between two dat hosts, including directory structure, file modes, and time modified (mtime), among other filesystem metadata (TODO: link to more info here). For example, changing the file mode of a single file will create an entirely different link.
By default, dat looks to host on port 3282, and if taken, will choose a random open port.
Dat stores its data in a hidden folder that is stored by default in the user's home directory.
~/.dat
Because of this, data is only ever downloaded once. That is, if you have multiple projects that use the same data (perhaps at different versions) on the same machine, dat will first check the global .dat folder.
The global .dat folder has inside:
$ ls ~/.dat
db
config.json