MiddFS can run on any UNIX-based system (theoretically). It has been tested on and is known to work on macOS, Linux, and FreeBSD.
You can install MiddFS on any UNIX-based system (macOS, Linux, FreeBSD, etc.). Its only requirement is that FUSE be installed and that the operating system be POSIX-compliant.
FUSE is a library that allows custom filesystems to run in userspsace. Here are platform-specific instructions for installing FUSE:
If you have Homebrew, simply run
$ brew cask install osxfuseHomebrew may list some caveats, e.g. you might need to enable OSXFUSE's kernel extension in System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> General.
Otherwise, you can directly download the package from OSXFUSE's GitHub Releases page.
FUSE is installed by default on all major Linux distributions, so you shouldn't need to install it. If you do for some reason, you can install it through your system's package manager.
You can install FUSE using pkg, the built-in package manager for FreeBSD. The FUSE packafe is named fusefs3; to install it, type
# pkg install fusefs3You might be able to install FUSE on Windows if you try hard enough. We're not providing instructions on how to do that here, though. Anyway, MiddFS has not been tested on Windows.
To compile MiddFS, simply run the following:
$ git clone https://github.com/nmosier/middfs.git
$ cd middfs/src
$ make clientCompilation should produce an executable at ./client/middfs-client.
This is the MiddFS client program that will let you connect to an existing MiddFS network.
Optional: To put middfs-client on your path, simply run
$ cp middfs/client-sever /usr/local/bin/Before mounting MiddFS, you will need to create a configuration file. You can save it anywhere, but the recommended path is ~/.middfs.conf (in your home directory).
The MiddFS configuration file requires the following parameters:
username=<string>
homepath=<path>
mountpoint=<path>
serverip=<dotted quad>
serverport=<integer>
localport=<integer>
Your username can be anything, as long as it doesn't have any spaces in it. The server uses your username as the name of your MiddFS user directory.
Your home path specifies what directory on your local filesystem that you want to
make public on MiddFS.
Do not set this to be any directory that contains sensitive information or file data that you aren't willing to lose and don't have a backup of.
Finally, use the full path of your home directory in the configuration file, with no shortcuts like ~.
The mountpoint configuration variable specifies the mountpoint of the MiddFS filesystem. After mounting MiddFS, the contents of other client's public folders (and your own) will be visible inside of this directory.
You can use pretty much any directory for MiddFS; some logical ones might be /mnt/middfs (Linux/FreeBSD) or /Volumes/middfs (macOS) or even ~/middfs (where you substitute ~ for your actual home path).
Note that whatever path you choose for your mountpoint must exist and be a directory, preferably empty before mounting.
Note that whitespace does matter.
If you are using MiddFS on Middlebury campus, the MiddFS server will be running on basin, so set
serverip=140.233.20.6
serverport=4321
(If basin's IP changes, simply obtain it using the command $ host basin.middlebury.edu.)
The localport configuration variable specifies on which port your MiddFS client should listen for and accept incoming requests.
It is recommended that you select a localport above 1024, since those don't require superuser permissions and probably won't already be in use if you choose one at random.
Some nice localport numbers are 4001 or 4999 because they are both prime, which makes MiddFS respond to incoming requests faster. (Not really...)
Here is an example configuration file:
username=nmosier
homepath=/Users/nmosier/public
mountpoint=/Users/nmosier/middfs
serverip=140.233.20.6
serverport=4321
localport=4999
Just like any other filesystem, you need to mount MiddFS before you can use it.
Once you have completed the installation and configuration of MiddFS, you can mount it with the following command:
middfs-client --conf=<path/to/middfs/conf> <mountpoint>
where <path/to/middfs/conf> is the absolute path to your MiddFS configuration file
and <mountpoint> is the same mountpoint you set in your configuration file (yes, this is annoying and redundant).
After successfully mounting MiddFS, a list of directories with the usernames of other connected clients (including you) should appear under your mountpoint. These should act (mostly) like regular directories, but they aren't actually on your hard drive! Any operation you make on these files results in your MiddFS client contacting the server, retrieving the file information from another MiddFS client, and then relaying the results back to your operating system. You should be able to create new files, read to and write from files, enter other clients' directories, and more.
The steps to unmount MiddFS vary platform-to-platform. On macOS, you should be able to right-click on the MiddFS mountpoint in Finder and then select "Eject". On any UNIX-based operating system, you can always unmount the MiddFS filesystem using
umount <mountpoint>
where <mountpoint> is the path to the MiddFS mountpoint. If that doesn't work, you can always kill the middfs-client process with
pkill middfs-client
The source code to MiddFS is located under src/.
There are three main subdirectories:
src/lib/client/server/
The lib/ subdirectory contains shared code used in both the MiddFS server and the MiddFS client.
The code in lib/ is compiled into a static library called lib/middfs-lib.a; run
$ make libinside src/ to build the library by itself.
The client/ subdirectory contains code specific to the MiddFS client. To make the client, run the command
$ make clientinside src/. This produces the executable src/client/middfs-client.
The server/ subdirectory contains code specific to the MiddFS server. To make the server, run the command
$ make serverinside src/. This produces the executable src/server/middfs-server.
- MiddFS is generally faster for command-line utilities than for GUI applications (because they are more decisive in their file operations).
- Having MiddFS open in your file explorer can cause many unnecessary idle file operations and reduce performance in other processes using files on MiddFS. (This problem will be mitigated by optimizations to MiddFS.)
If you'd like to see a feature added to MiddFS, please create an issue tagged as a "feature" on MiddFS's GitHub repository.
If you encounter any errors during compilation, please report them as issues on MiddFS's GitHub repository.