RShare HowTo (English)
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Contents |
How to: Anonymous Filesharing with RShare
Introduction
I wrote this How to for RShare with the intention to show you everything you need to know about RShare and his fine features. Even if RShare is pretty ease to use there are a couple of things I want to point to. You can expect hints & tips concerning configuration, updating and so on.
More information and links
For more information about RShare visit the following Websites:
- rshare.de - Official RShare Website with screenshots, download, developer blog and so on
- RShare forum - The RShare discussion forum on Planet Peer Board
- The RShare FAQ
How to Changelog
Version 0.3 2006-08-20 First release of the english HowTo --Markus 22:40, 20 August 2006 (CEST)
Version 0.2 2006-08-16 Some additions --Markus 21:45, 16 August 2006 (CEST)
Version 0.1 2006-08-16 How to created --Markus 00:34, 16 August 2006 (CEST)
Download and install the latest RShare release
In this How to I assume that you have not installed RShare yet, hence you have to download the current version of
RShare from the RShare-Website first and extract the archive to a directory of your choice, for
instance C:\Program files\RShare. In the RShare pre-releases you have to create a desktop icon yourself.
The final RShare version 0.7 will be released with an installer who will install RShare to the default directory
C:\Program Files\Regensburger\RShare.
RShare requires .NET 2.0 Framework from Microsoft!
To run StealthNet.exe under Linux you have to install mono ([1]).
For Debian 4 and Ubuntu 7.10+ install these packets:
* mono-devel * libmono-corlib2.0-cil * libmono-system-runtime2.0-cil
Configure RShare
Don´t worry, there isn´t much to do. However, I recommend to browse trough the RShare settings to modify some
defaults like the directories for shared files.
After you started RShare you see the following menu:
I am going to explain all important settings and will point to some really important settings.
Preferences/Preferences
With a mouse click on Preferences the settings dialog for RShare appears:
There are two important settings I want to point to.
You can choose whatever you want for the Peer Name but use never ever an alias or an handle which might reveal your real identity (for instance, forum/board nicknames and such).
I recommend also to disable the Balloon Tips if you don´t want to be disturbed every second by Balloon Tips appearing on the screen.
The RShare default port is 6097/TCP. If you are behind a router or a firewall make sure that you configure port forwarding to your target host properly, otherwise RShare will fail to connect to the network!
Preferences/Directories
Under normal circumstances it isn´t necessary to change any of the paths located under Other Directories. If
you want to share directories you have to add them with the Add button according to the screenshot.
Preferences/WebCaches
Here you can find an overview of the RShare Webcaches who are required for the bootstrapping process. The Webcaches
are utilized to connect to the RShare network, and without any mandatory reason I would not recommend to change this
settings.
If you want to provide a Webcache for RShare yourself you can download the source code for the client-sided Webcache
from the RShare website. The source code for the server-based Webcaches will be
provided asap from Lars.
There is also a PHP port of the Webcache available. If you interested in this port do not hesitate to contact cs301
in the RShare forum on board.planetpeer.de.
Preferences/Cryptography
Here are the cryptographic settings at a glance. You should not change any of the settings unless you know what you
are doing.
Important: If you changed the settings you have to restart RShare to apply them!
Functional survey
In this part of the How to you will learn more about the relevant functions of RShare. As before I will mention
things of particular importance.
Connections
While you checked your settings RShare has established (hopefully!) the connection to the RShare network. To see the
current status of RShare just click the Connections button. I am going to explain the screenshot from top to
bottom:
- RShare version information is being displayed in the windows title since pre-release 4 Fourth Edition (FE)
- After the menu connections and statistics regarding other RShare nodes are displayed
- Bottom left current status messages are shown
- On the right part of the status bar the following data is displayed: Current download/upload statistics, number of
current connections and peers as well as your public IP address
Important: If RShare can not establish connections to the network your IP address will be display in red color, otherwise green color signals that everything works well. In case of red color you might want to check your port forward settings if you are behin a router or a firewall.
Peers
Provides an overview over all peers you are connected to. The peers are displayed with hashes, not with IP
addresses. Furthermore you can information about the number of files a peer shares or the RShare version the peer
uses.
Click with the right mouse button on a peer to open a context menu. This menu provides for instance an option to
initiate a private chat with the selected peer. I will explain this feature later.
Search
Although the search function is self-explanatory there a few hints you should aware of when you search for something:
If you are searching for file extensions like .zip, .exe or something similar the search pattern has to be at least three characters long! Let´s make an example: You are looking for files with the extension .7z. To get results (if there are any) you have rather to search for .7z instead of 7z.
In the search input field you can enter either file names or extensions. It may take a few minutes until you see search results. Files matching your search criteria are displayed according to the screenshot. The more sources a file has, the faster the download is.
Each displayed file has its own context menu which can invoked with a click on it with the right mouse button.
Downloads can be started with Download. New downloads can be started in a paused mode with Download (Suspended) and last but not least file information can be requested with the last option in the context menu.
File hashes can be copied to the clipboard with a click on the Copy to clipboard link. This is really helpful if you want to offer a file for someone without making the file name public. Just tell the recipient the hash so he can download the shared file with its hash string.
Downloads
You can see all your current downloads at a glance. Each download has its own progress bar and works with special color schemes for better overview.
The used colors have the following meanings:
- Red = No sources are known for the corresponding section
- Blue = At least one source is known for the corresponding section
- Yellow = The corresponding section is being downloaded
- Green = The corresponding sections has already been downloaded
- Grey = Paused download
If no section of a download is dyed in yellow either no source has been contacted so far or the download is queued in the download queue(s) of the source(s).
At this point you can invoke (as described above) another context menu with a click with the right mouse button on a download.
With the last context menu entry you are able to download a file with the hash of it. If you select this option another dialog appears where you can enter the file hash.
Downloads are saved when you quit and are resumed automatically with the next start of RShare.
Uploads
If you want to see who is downloading from you can do this here.
Chats
One of the really interesting and cool features of RShare is the private chat. Private chats are fully encrypted and anonymous. They are accomplished between two RShare nodes.
A more detailed description will follow.
Shared Files
The name says it all: Here you can see all your shared files.
Troubleshooting
If something won´t work make sure you have read the RShare FAQ first before you describe your problem at the Planet Peer RShare forum.
Pictures and HowTo: Markus
