Kabootar: File Sharing made Simple

What is Kabootar?

Do you remember SHAREit? We all do🙃! Well, what if we told you that we made it lighter, faster and easier to use? With Kabootar, now you can share all your files with your friends and family in a jiffy.

Using Kabootar's peer-to-peer framework, we can now share files securely and privately without the need for any third-party servers. Kabootar is cross-platform and works on any device without any downloads.

The name "Kabootar" comes from an ancient practise of sending messages to designated people using specially trained pigeons.

How to use Kabootar?

The sender goes to the Kabootar homepage and selects the file to be shared.
Kabootar generates a unique link for the file.
The link is then shared with the receiver.
The receiver clicks on the link and the file is downloaded.

Why not XYZ?

SHAREit/Wi-Fi Direct/Nearby Share/AirDrop: SHAREit was a great app but it requires a direct Wi-Fi connection/Bluetooth and hence devices need to be in a closed vicinity. Kabootar is a peer-to-peer framework that will transfer files through a local network if the device is connected to the same network or uses the internet otherwise.
Google Drive/OneDrive/Dropbox: Google Drive and other cloud services are great but they rely on third-party servers and their transfer speeds while Kabootar is a P2P framework.

How does it work?

Kabootar uses a peer-to-peer framework to transfer files. The sender generates a unique link for the file and shares it with the receiver. The receiver clicks on the link and the file is downloaded. Kabootar uses WebRTC to transfer files.

How are peers discovered?

In a P2P file sharing system, peers need to be able to find each other before they can send files. To do this we need to have a way to identify peers. A signaling server is a server that can be used to exchange this information.
Signaling server listens to requests for creating rooms and adding peers to rooms. Once a room has been created, whenever a client goes to the file sharing link a GET request is made to the /ws/:room_id route with the mKey for a master or cKey for a client as query parameters. If the room exists, the client is added to the room and a WebSocket connection is established with the client.

How are files transferred?

Files are transferred using the WebRTC protocol. WebRTC is an open standard that provides web browsers and mobile applications with Real-Time Communications (RTC) capabilities via simple APIs. The WebRTC components have been optimized to best serve this purpose.
WebRTC protocol is inherently secure and uses encryption to transfer files. It also uses ICE to find the best route to transfer files. This makes our file transfer secure, fast and reliable.

How to run?

Rendezvous

Inside the signalling directory:

mkdir out
go build -o out/rendezvous ./cmd/signalling
Copy the kabootar.example.toml to kabootar.toml and modify the configuration values inside it
./out/rendezvous

Web-app

Modify the src/config.ts to change the baseURL to http://localhost:3000 and flip secure to false
Run yarn install --frozen-lockfile
Run yarn dev

People

Akshit Garg
Megh Rathod

meghrathod/kabootar