Stands for 'Fi'le 'SH'aring.

A simple file transfer program that requires zero configuration. It discovers peers through IP Multicast and requires no central server to manage all connections. All communication is purely P2P.

• Python 2.7
• Twisted - A web-framework for python
• PyQt4 - A GUI tookit for python

• Each Peer is assigned a unique UID -- 16 byte string, and a name chosen by the user. From now on the string <UID>.<name> refers to the "ident_string" of the peer the uniquely identifies each peer.

• Each peer joins a pre-determined multicast group.

• Peers discover each other through messages exchanged on this multicast group.

• Each peer maintains a local copy of discovered peers. Adding and removing peers managed by the multicast handler.

• Each peer also runs a file indexing daemon that recursively iterates over the files in a given folder, calculating the SHA1 hashes of each file and saving these values in an index.

• Each peer is also equipped with a probe.

• The probe retrieves the file hash index from any given peer and can also request a file transfer.

• A file transfer request from a probe is handled by the file transfer daemon.

A custom message serialization module. Each message has to be instantiated with a context. I suggest that you create derived class whose constructor sets the "context" property of each object.

Each message has a "code" and a list which consists of "data items". Each "data item" is a tuple consisting of multiple "data members". This shallow fixed nesting is a result of the realization that two levels is as deep as it goes. Messages are represented as:-

<message> :-: <key>:<items>

<items> :-: <item-1>;<item-2>;(..);<item-n>

<item> :-: <member-1>.<member-2>.(..).<member-n>

Every message is base64 encoded on serialization. A message can be instantiated from a base64 encoded string on the transport endpoint

Stands for Local Peer Discovery over LAN. It uses IP multicast to discover peers and broadcast its presence. There are 3 basic kinds of messages:-

1. FISH_HOOK - This message is broadcast on an exponential back-off basis starting with a time interval of 1 second and each successive transmission delay is double the previous value. The first item consists of the "ident_string" of the broadcasting peer followed by the ident_string of all discovered peers - aimed at reducing redundant transmission.

2. FISH_UNHOOK - This message is triggered when the peer is about to exit.

3. FISH_LIVE - Alerts all other peers of its existence, usually in response to a FISH_HOOK

Stands for File Transfer. It consists of an indexer a daemon and a probe.

• Indexer - It recursively traverses a given directory and finds all files. The SHA1 checksum of each file is calculated and a file index is built. This index is stored in the root directory as a ".findex" file. The indexer is also responsible for the creation of file containers for file downloads.

• Daemon - It serves the file index to any requesting peer and also handles file uploads.

• Probe - It fetches the file index of any peer and also retrieves or downloads an indexed file.

Probe and daemon are based on a StreamLineProtocol. This is basically a LineReciever with some functionality to register custom data handlers to handle file transfer.

The probe and daemon exchange file indexes and handle file transfers using 4 basic command srtings:-

1. LOAD_HASH_TABLE - It is a parameterless message sent from probe to daemon requesting the file index. The daemon dumps the file index as a JSON object on the open connection.

2. LOAD_FILE - The probe requests the daemon to start file transfer of a file with given SHA1 hash. This is the first part of the threeway handshake that actually initiates file transfer

3. START_TRANSFER - The daemon then replies with the size of the file in bytes, and the probe reponds with the desired byte range -- possible future support for parallel downloads.

4. ERROR - The daemon sends this message when it recieves an invalid command string. There a maximum of three invalid commands for each probe instance.

Tests are broken

The app can be run by running $ python2 fish.py

• [Windows Executable][fish-win32exe]

Vasuman Ravichandran (vasumanar@gmail.com)