acp

Highlights (aka "Why making another file-transfer tool?"):

• Designed for personal use; no need to copy-paste a token / code for each transfer
• Rendezvous service runs distributively on serverless edge function, a robust solution with low latency worldwide. (How does this work?)

Other features:

• End-to-end encryption (ChaCha20-Poly1305)
• P2P connection: LAN or WAN, with NAT transversal
• Compression (gzip)
• Cross platform: Linux, macOS, Windows
• Support transfering multiple files and directories
• Optional Tailscale integration

See also comparison table with similar tools.

Get started

Linux, macOS

On any of your machine, run

curl -fsS https://acp.deno.dev/get | sh

It sets up the current machine by downloading an executable and generating an identity. By default the install path is /usr/local/bin; you can change it by curl -fsS 'https://acp.deno.dev/get?dir=/path/to/bin' | sh At the end, it prints out the command for setting up your other machines. You can run acp --setup any time you want to see the command.

Windows

Currently there is no installation script for PowerShell (PR welcomes :) You can download the released executable and put it on your Path. Then run acp --setup to generate an identity.

Usage

# sender
acp path/to/files

# receiver, to $(pwd)
acp
# or receive to/as specified target
acp -d path/to/target

You can run the sender and receiver in arbitrary order. Whenever both sides are up and running, they will attempt to establish a P2P connection. If you see messages such as rendezvous timeout, at least one side is behind a firewall or a strict NAT that prohibits P2P connection.

For advanced configuration and self-hosting, check out the docs here.

Similar projects

	trzsz	scp	acp	pcp	croc
can share files to other people / receiver needs to enter a token				O	O
LAN	O	O	O	O	O
WAN (local ↔︎ remote)	O	O	O	P	O
WAN (remote ↔︎ remote)		P	O	P	O
relay			P	P	O
p2p			O	O	O
distributive			O	O

O: supported; P: partial support or limited usablity; (void): not supported or not relevant

Don't judge a tool based on its apparent set of features. This table only lists a few features, intending to differentiate the target scenarios of these tools.

Acknowledgement

Apart from the dependencies listed in go.mod, this project is also built upon

• Deno Deploy exposes low-level connection infomation and provides a fantastic BroadcastChannel API that makes "serverless" TCP hole-punching possible
• mholt/archiver: tar/untar implementation
• libp2p/go-reuseport: address reuse for TCP hole-punching
• egoist/bina: installation script
• Tailscale, as one of the connection option, provides a painstaking implementation of NAT traversal and a distributive relay service

Disclaimer

This project is not associated with Deno Land Inc. or Tailscale Inc.