How It Works
Behind Sietch's resilient, survival-first design is a carefully engineered architecture that prioritizes security, offline functionality, and resource efficiency. This page explains the technical components that make your vault reliable even in the harshest conditions.
Chunking & Deduplication
Files in Sietch are never stored as monolithic blobs, but intelligently divided into smaller, manageable pieces:
Smart Chunking
Each file is split into chunks using configurable size (default 4MB). This approach enables efficient sync, storage, and recovery-even when connections are unstable.
- Fixed-size chunking: Predictable, efficient splitting of files
- Content-defined chunking (CDC): Identifies natural boundaries in files for better deduplication
- Rolling hash algorithms: Find duplicate chunks across different files
- Automatic deduplication: Identical chunks are stored only once
# Example of configuring chunking during initialization
sietch init --name research-vault --chunking-strategy cdc --chunk-size 2MB
Encryption Layer
Sietch ensures your data remains private through robust encryption systems:
End-to-End Encryption
Each chunk is encrypted before storage with no exceptions. Only authorized parties with the correct keys can decrypt and access your data.
- AES-256-GCM: Fast symmetric encryption with passphrase protection
- GPG-compatible: Public/private key encryption for multi-peer sharing
- Per-chunk encryption: Individual encryption of each chunk for maximum security
- Nonce generation: Unique nonces prevent identical ciphertexts even for identical content
Key Management is Critical
Peer Discovery
To function in decentralized environments, Sietch needs robust ways to find other vaults:
Gossip Discovery Protocol
A lightweight mechanism for vaults to find each other without centralized servers, even in disconnected or local-only networks.
- LAN discovery: Auto-discovery via UDP broadcast messages
- Manual peering: Direct specification of known peer addresses
- Peer exchange: Vaults can share information about other known peers
- Planned features: Bluetooth, NFC, and QR-code based discovery
# Manually add a known peer
sietch peer add 192.168.1.42
Syncing Mechanism
Once peers are discovered, Sietch uses an intelligent syncing process:
Rsync-Inspired Sync
Efficient, resumable transfer of only the data that's changed or missing between vaults.
- Manifest comparison: Peers exchange encrypted manifests to identify differences
- Chunk transfer: Only missing chunks are requested and sent
- Resumable transfers: Sync can pause and continue if interrupted
- Transport options:
- TCP direct connections (fastest, local)
- LibP2P (most robust, NAT traversal)
- Sneakernet (physical media transfer for airgap scenarios)
# Manually add a known peer
sietch sync --peer 192.168.1.42
Security Flow
Sietch's architecture defends against multiple threats:
| Threat | Mitigation |
|---|---|
| Passive eavesdropping | End-to-end encryption of chunks |
| Man-in-the-middle | LibP2P TLS transport security |
| Unauthorized access | Content verification via cryptographic hashes |
| Chunk tampering | Merkle tree verification of chunk integrity |
| Replay attacks | Secure transport with nonce/timestamp validation |
Technical Deep Dive
Continue to Installation to get started.