Zbox Zbox
Zbox is a zero-details, privacy-focused embeddable file system. Its goal is to help application store files securely, privately and reliably. By encapsulating files and directories into an encrypted repository, it provides a virtual file system and exclusive access to authorised application.
Unlike other system-level file systems, such as [ext4], [XFS] and [Btrfs], which provide shared access to multiple processes, Zbox is a file system that runs in the same memory space as the application. It only provides access to one process at a time.
By abstracting IO access, Zbox supports a variety of underlying storage layers, including memory, OS file system, RDBMS and key-value object store.
Zbox is under active development, we are not responsible for any data loss or leak caused by using it. Always back up your files and use at your own risk!
Many OS-level file systems support encryption, such as [EncFS], [APFS] and [ZFS]. Some disk encryption tools also provide virtual file system, such as [TrueCrypt], [LUKS] and [VeraCrypt].
This diagram shows the difference between Zbox and them.
Below is the feature comparison list.
| | Zbox | OS-level File Systems | Disk Encryption Tools | | --------------------------- | ------------------------ | ------------------------ | ------------------------ | | Encrypts file contents | :heavycheckmark: | partial | :heavycheckmark: | | Encrypts file metadata | :heavycheckmark: | partial | :heavycheckmark: | | Encrypts directory | :heavycheckmark: | partial | :heavycheckmark: | | Data integrity | :heavycheckmark: | partial | :heavymultiplicationx: | | Shared access for processes | :heavymultiplicationx: | :heavycheckmark: | :heavycheckmark: | | Deduplication | :heavycheckmark: | :heavymultiplicationx: | :heavymultiplicationx: | | Compression | :heavycheckmark: | partial | :heavymultiplicationx: | | Versioning | :heavycheckmark: | :heavymultiplicationx: | :heavymultiplicationx: | | COW semantics | :heavycheckmark: | partial | :heavymultiplicationx: | | ACID Transaction | :heavycheckmark: | :heavymultiplicationx: | :heavymultiplicationx: | | Multiple storage layers | :heavycheckmark: | :heavymultiplicationx: | :heavymultiplicationx: | | API access | :heavycheckmark: | through VFS | through VFS | | Symbolic links | :heavymultiplicationx: | :heavycheckmark: | depends on inner FS | | Users and permissions | :heavymultiplicationx: | :heavycheckmark: | :heavycheckmark: | | FUSE support | :heavymultiplicationx: | :heavycheckmark: | :heavycheckmark: | | Linux and macOS support | :heavycheckmark: | :heavycheckmark: | :heavycheckmark: | | Windows support | :heavycheckmark: | partial | :heavycheckmark: |
By now, Zbox supports a variety of underlying storage, which are listed below. Memory and OS file storage are enabled by default, all the others can to be enabled individually by specifying its feature when build.
| Storage | URI identifier | Feature | | -------------- | --------------- | -------------- | | Memory | "mem://" | N/A | | OS file system | "file://" | N/A | | SQLite | "sqlite://" | storage-sqlite | | Redis | "redis://" | storage-redis |
There is another special storage Faulty ("faulty://"), which is based on
memory storage and can simulate random IO error. It is used internally to
facilitate random IO error test.
For reference documentation, please visit documentation.
32-bit and other OS are NOT supported yet.
Add the following dependency to your Cargo.toml:
toml
[dependencies]
zbox = "0.6.1"
```rust extern crate zbox;
use std::io::{Read, Write}; use zbox::{init_env, RepoOpener, OpenOptions};
fn main() { // initialise zbox environment, called first init_env();
// create and open a repository in current OS directory
let mut repo = RepoOpener::new()
.create(true)
.open("file://./my_repo", "your password")
.unwrap();
// create and open a file in repository for writing
let mut file = OpenOptions::new()
.create(true)
.open(&mut repo, "/my_file.txt")
.unwrap();
// use std::io::Write trait to write data into it
file.write_all(b"Hello, world!").unwrap();
// finish writing to make a permanent content version
file.finish().unwrap();
// read file content using std::io::Read trait
let mut content = String::new();
file.read_to_string(&mut content).unwrap();
assert_eq!(content, "Hello, world!");
} ```
Zbox comes with [Docker] support, it is easier to build Zbox with [zboxfs/base] image. This image is based on Ubuntu 16.04 and has Rust stable and libsodium included. Check more details in the Dockerfile.
You can also use image [zboxfs/android] to build Zbox for Android. It is based on [zboxfs/base] image and has Android NDK included. Check more details in the Dockerfile.
To build for Linux x86_64:
bash
docker run --rm -v $PWD:/root/zbox zboxfs/base cargo build
To build for Android x86_64:
bash
docker run --rm -v $PWD:/root/zbox zboxfs/android cargo build --target x86_64-linux-android
To build for Android arm64:
bash
docker run --rm -v $PWD:/root/zbox zboxfs/android cargo build --target aarch64-linux-android
Or run the test suite.
bash
docker run --rm -v $PWD:/root/zbox zboxfs/base cargo test
By default, Zbox uses dynamic linking when it is linked with libsodium. If you want to change this behavior and use static linking, you can enable below two environment variables.
On Linux/macOS,
bash
export SODIUM_LIB_DIR=/path/to/your/libsodium/lib
export SODIUM_STATIC=true
On Windows,
bash
set SODIUM_LIB_DIR=C:\path\to\your\libsodium\lib
set SODIUM_STATIC=true
And then re-build the code.
bash
cargo build
The performance test is run on a Macbook Pro 2017 laptop with spec as below.
| Spec | Value | | ----------------------- | --------------------------- | | Processor Name: | Intel Core i7 | | Processor Speed: | 3.5 GHz | | Number of Processors: | 1 | | Total Number of Cores: | 2 | | L2 Cache (per Core): | 256 KB | | L3 Cache: | 4 MB | | Memory: | 16 GB | | OS Version: | macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 |
Test result:
| | Read | Write | TPS | | ----------------------------- | --------------- | -------------- | ------------ | | Baseline (memcpy): | 3658.23 MB/s | 3658.23 MB/s | N/A | | Baseline (file): | 1307.97 MB/s | 2206.30 MB/s | N/A | | Memory storage (no compress): | 605.01 MB/s | 186.20 MB/s | 267 tx/s | | Memory storage (compress): | 505.04 MB/s | 161.11 MB/s | 263 tx/s | | File storage (no compress): | 435.66 MB/s | 147.44 MB/s | 117 tx/s | | File storage (compress): | 372.60 MB/s | 124.92 MB/s | 106 tx/s |
To run the performance test on your own computer, please follow the instructions in CONTRIBUTING.md.
Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in the work by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be licensed as above, without any additional terms of conditions.
Please read CONTRIBUTING.md for details on our code of conduct, and the process for submitting pull requests to us.
Zbox is licensed under the Apache 2.0 License - see the LICENSE
file for details.