Exocore

Warning: Exocore is at a very early development stage, hence incomplete, unstable, and probably totally unsafe. Use at your own risk.

Exocore is a distributed applications framework with private and encrypted data storage. Think of it as an infrastructure that allows a user to own his own personal cloud that is extensible via WebAssembly applications and accessible via Web/Mobile/Backend SDKs. It is designed to be resilient to failures and will eventually allow offline usage (ex: on mobile).

Exocore is primarily built for Exomind, a personal knowledge management tool built in parallel to this project. Exocore is the application framework for Exomind.

The primary concept in Exocore is a Cell, which is a unique container for a user's applications and data.

A cell consists of:

• Chain nodes manage replication and storage by using a blockchain data structure.
• Store nodes manage indexation, querying, and mutation of the data (collocated with chain node).
• Application host nodes run applications written in WebAssembly (collocated with store nodes)

Roadmap

v0.1 (in progress)

• Chain storage and replication: Proof of concept
• Transport: Proof of concept
• Entity store: Proof of concept
• Applications (WASM host): Proof of concept

v0.2

• Cell management (Configuration replication)
• Enhanced security (Chain encryption, configuration signatures, etc.)

v0.3 and beyond

• Android SDK
• Blob storage (IPFS)
• Offline support

Dependencies

• Build dependencies

  • On MacOS: Install Xcode and command lines tools
  • On Ubuntu: apt install build-essential pkg-config libssl-dev

• Rust

  • Install using rustup
  • Install clippy and rustfmt: rustup component add clippy rustfmt

• Cap'n Proto

  • On MacOS: brew install capnp
  • On Ubuntu: apt install capnproto

• Protobuf

  • On MacOS: brew install protobuf swift-protobuf
  • On Ubuntu: apt install protobuf-compiler

Usage & configuration

• CLI:

  • ./tools/install.sh or cd exo && cargo install --path . or grab latest released binary.

• Configuration

  • Most commands require a node configuration file, for which an example can be found here: [./examples/node.yaml]. exo can also generate and manage configurations. See Quick start.
  • At a minimum, the config requires 2 keypairs: one for the node, one for the cell.
  • The node keypair is unique per node, while the cell keypair is shared among servers that host the cell.
  • See Quick start section for example 2 nodes setup.

Quick start

Create a Cell hosted on 2 nodes

• On node 1

  • Generate configuration:

    exo --dir ./node1 node init --name node1

  • Edit configuration to include unique and accessible addresses:

    exo -d ./node1 config edit

  • Generate a cell:

    exo -d ./node1 cell init --name my_cell

• On node 2

  • Generate configuration:

    exo --dir ./node2 node init --name node1

  • Edit configuration to include unique and accessible addresses. If both nodes are running on the same machine, make sure they have unique ports.

    exo -d ./node2 config edit

  • Request to join the cell as a chain and store node. This will use exocore's discovery server (disco.exocore.io) to exchange configurations:

    exo -d ./node2 cell join --chain --store

    and copy the displayed discovery PIN.

• On node 1:

  • Add node 2 to cell:

    exo -d ./node1 cell node add

    Paste node 2's discovery PIN and accept its join request.

• Start both nodes:

  • Node 1: exo -d ./node1 daemon
  • Node 2: exo -d ./node2 daemon

Join the example web client

• See Web example README

Install & run Exomind

• See Exomind README

Clients

Web

• See Web WASM client README

C

• See C client README

iOS

• See iOS client README

Documentation

• Replication