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SSB browser demo

Screenshot of ssb browser demo

Playground ssb-server in a browser. This was originally made as a demo for my bornhack talk.

The client was made for two purposes: test ssb in a browser and for evaluating different partial replication strategies.

Partial replication is done by only getting the last few post messages for users as a way of onboarding users quickly. The client can download and index around 5.000 messages in 30 seconds on my really slow laptop (same speed on a phone). For this, a blob (generate-onboarding-json.js) must be provided that serves as a trusted onboard mechanism and as such should only be used between friends. Currently it can be hard to find new users of this client because one doesn't follow a pub. I plan on fixing this using ssb-peer-invites. Another way this project tries to make partial replication better is by using the ssb-contact-msg library where contact messages are linked together.

As a way to let people explore the messags of users outside this initial list of people, the ssb-get-thread plugin is used to get threads from the server. This has privacy implications so this need to be configurable, see TODO.

The UI is written in vue.js and can display posts and self assigned profile about messages. Leaving out likes was done on purpose as an experiment. I don't plan on adding them.

Things that work:

  • viewing posts and threads
  • posting and replying to messages
  • posting blobs
  • viewing profiles and setting up your own profile
  • private messages including decrypting private blobs
  • off-chain chat using ssb-tunnel for e2e encrypted messages
  • ooo messages

Tested with Chrome and Firefox. Chrome is faster because it uses fs instead of indexeddb.

An online version is available for testing here

Running locally

For testing this in Chrome locally, one needs to be run it with: --allow-file-access-from-files

Also be sure to enable all 5 WASM options in chrome://flags/. Otherwise crypto will be super slow (like validate).

The following patches (patch -p0 < x.patch) from the patches folder are needed:

  • epidemic-broadcast-fix-replicate-multiple.patch
  • flumeview-level-mkdirp.patch
  • ssb-ebt.patch
  • ssb-friends.patch
  • ssb-tunnel.patch

The following branches are references directly until patches are merged and pushed:

For a smaller bundle file, you can also apply patches/sodium-browserify.patch

Server

Server needs to have ws enabled.

"ws": [
 { "port": 8989, "host": "::", "scope": "public", "transform": "shs" }
]

The ssb-partial-replication plugin is needed for faster sync. Also the ssb-get-thread plugin is used for browsing threads you don't currently have, such as from people outside the people you have synced or older messages because of the partial replication nature.

Onboarding file

Generate a file of all feeds following with seq nos. The perspective (user) can be changed in top.

node generate-onboarding-json.js > onboard.json

Add it as a blob to the network:

cat onboard.json | ../ssb-minimal-pub-server/bin.js blobs.add

=> something like

&YTbAj6FWYBZOyKLeGXb+Kb4wLIlEoryq9PL1nhlCek4=.sha256

browserify 2mb

Removing blobs means that we go down to 1.6mb. ssb-backlinks brings this back to 2mb because of level.

browserify --full-paths core.js > bundle-core.js browserify --full-paths ui/browser.js > bundle-ui.js

ssb-markdown increases the size quite substantially

TODO

  • exif stripping for images
  • peer-invites
  • port over ssb-friend-pub
  • disable or trust pubs as a way to control when to fetch threads

uglifyify

browserify --full-paths -g uglifyify -p common-shakeify core.js > bundle-core.js browserify --full-paths -g uglifyify -p common-shakeify browser-test.js > bundle-test.js

=> 1.2mb

Other

Force WASM locally (outside browser)

rm -rf node_modules/sodium-chloride/

check contents of db

var pull = require("pull-stream")

pull(
  store.stream(),
  pull.drain((msg) => {
    console.log(msg)
  })
)

List all files in browser

function listDir(fs, path)
{
	fs.root.getDirectory(path, {}, function(dirEntry){
		var dirReader = dirEntry.createReader();
		dirReader.readEntries(function(entries) {
		for(var i = 0; i < entries.length; i++) {
			var entry = entries[i];
			if (entry.isDirectory) {
				console.log('Directory: ' + entry.fullPath);
				listDir(fs, entry.fullPath)
			}
			else if (entry.isFile)
                console.log('File: ' + entry.fullPath);
			}
		})
	})
}

window.webkitRequestFileSystem(window.PERSISTENT, 0, function (fs) {
	listDir(fs, '/.ssb-lite/')
})

indexes

Backlinks & query uses flumeview-level that stores it's db in indexdb in the browser. These indexes are much slower in the browser.

oasis

%owvZa0OwPBH2olaKUiex1wqyBO/+AeBlxEHcH7jORtA=.sha256

mcss generate css

mcss plugs/app/page/books.mcss -o books.css