= Documentation for Tahoe-LAFS Users =

There are two collections of documents for users. One collection is made up of pages on this wiki, and the other is made up of files in the 'docs' directory of the Tahoe-LAFS source tree.

Note: these links are to the 'trunk' (latest) versions of the documentation. See the 'docs' directory of a Tahoe-LAFS release for docs relating to that version.

== User Docs, on the wiki ==
 * [http://tahoe-lafs.org/source/tahoe/trunk/docs/about.html about]: the Tahoe-LAFS filesystem and the unique properties that it offers
 * [http://tahoe-lafs.org/source/tahoe-lafs/trunk/docs/quickstart.html quickstart]: how to get the software and set it up
 * [http://tahoe-lafs.org/source/tahoe/trunk/docs/running.html running]: how to run it once it is set up
 * [wiki:TestGrid Public Test Grid]: an existing grid to use for testing your installation

 * [source:docs/known_issues.rst Known Issues]: things you need to be aware of if you want to rely on Tahoe-LAFS to store your valuable data.
 * [wiki:HowToReportABug How To Report A Bug]: We love bug reports! Here's how.

 * [http://bigasterisk.com/tahoe-playground The story of a file], interactive illustration by Drew Perttula.

 * [wiki:FAQ Frequently Asked Questions]: with answers!

 * [wiki:UseCases UseCases]: the ways in which Tahoe-LAFS should be useful
 * [wiki:AdvancedInstall AdvancedInstall]: more information about building and installing Tahoe-LAFS
 * [wiki:SftpFrontend SFTP Frontend]: compatibility issues for accessing Tahoe-LAFS via SFTP
 * [wiki:TipsTricks Tips & Tricks]

== User Docs, in source code ==
 * [source:docs/ the 'docs' directory]

== A Glance Under The Hood or "Gee What Does This Button Do?"  ==
 * [source:trunk/docs/configuration.rst configuration]: a description of the contents of your ".tahoe" directory
 * [source:trunk/docs/architecture.rst architecture]: a succinct overview of the whole system 
 * [source:trunk/docs/frontends/CLI.rst Command Line Interface]: the basic "how to" for the CLI
 * [source:trunk/docs/frontends/webapi.rst Web API]: the basic "how to" for the WAPI
 * [wiki:Capabilities] what are capabilities; the different kinds that we currently use

== Presentations / Papers ==
 * [http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/attachment/wiki/News/tahoe-RSA-slides.pdf] presented at RSA 2010
 * [http://tahoe-lafs.org/~zooko/lafs.pdf Tahoe – The Least-Authority Filesystem] presented at [http://storagess.org/2008 Storage Security and Survivability '08]
 * [http://tahoe-lafs.org/~warner/pycon-tahoe.html Tahoe: A Secure Distributed Filesystem] presented at
   [http://us.pycon.org/2008/about/ PyCon2008],
   providing an overview of the Tahoe-LAFS design, and the
   [http://tahoe-lafs.org/~warner/pycon-tahoe-slides.zip slides] (.zip) that
   were used for the presentation
 * [http://www.cs.utk.edu/~plank/plank/papers/FAST-2009.html  A Performance Evaluation and Examination of Open-Source Erasure Coding Libraries For Storage] to be presented at [http://www.usenix.org/events/fast09  FAST-2009: 7th USENIX Conference on File and Storage Technologies]

== See Also ==
 * [wiki:News The News page] for sources of news and information.
 * [wiki:Bibliography The Bibliography page] contains links to scientific papers of interest.
 * [wiki:RelatedProjects The RelatedProjects page] extensions to Tahoe-LAFS, integrations of Tahoe-LAFS into your favorite other tools, and links to a few other decentralized storage projects that you might be interested in.
 * [wiki:Dev The Dev page] for Tahoe-LAFS hackers.

== The Parade of Release Notes ==
{{{
#!html
    <table border="1px solid black" border-collapse="collapse">
      <tr><th>release notes</th><th>date</th><th>what's new</th></tr>
      <tr><td><a href="http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/browser/trunk/relnotes.txt?rev=7a4f76fd90018447">v1.8.2</a></td><td>January 30, 2011</td><td>Twisted-10.2 compatibility, minor bugfixes</td></tr>
      <tr><td><a href="http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/browser/trunk/relnotes.txt?rev=ce41eabdb2e36c3d">v1.8.1</a></td><td>November 28, 2010</td><td>minor bugfixes, including a security fix and a performance improvement to downloads; also binary packages of dependencies for more platforms</td></tr>
      <tr><td><a href="http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/browser/trunk/relnotes.txt?rev=6bf594ae13560678">v1.8.0</a></td><td>September 24, 2010</td><td>performance and fault-tolerance of downloads, internationalization on Windows, logging, packaging</td></tr>
      <tr><td><a href="http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/browser/trunk/relnotes.txt?rev=9f3995feb9b2769c">v1.7.1</a></td><td>July 19, 2010</td><td>upload bugfixes, Debian init scripts, etc.</td></tr>
      <tr><td><a href="http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/browser/trunk/relnotes.txt?rev=7fde9d787500621a">v1.7.0</a></td><td>June 18, 2010</td><td>SFTP, unicode, servers-of-happiness</td></tr>
      <tr><td><a href="http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/browser/trunk/relnotes.txt?rev=b7c02488c860da38">v1.6.1</a></td><td>February 27, 2010</td><td>fixes a few small regressions in v1.6.0</td></tr>
      <tr><td><a href="http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/browser/trunk/relnotes.txt?rev=80816fd72227563f">v1.6</a></td><td>February 1, 2010</td><td>performance improvements, usability improvements, deep-immutable directories</td></tr>
      <tr><td><a href="http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/browser/trunk/relnotes.txt?rev=263713ee659cbd32">v1.5</a></td><td>August 1, 2009</td><td>WUI style, forward-compatibility, no size-limit on directories, more efficient directories, safer mv</td></tr>
      <tr><td><a href="http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/browser/trunk/relnotes.txt?rev=8c687c78dac5b56a">v1.4.1</a></td><td>April 13, 2009</td><td>garbage collection, improved diagnostics, performance improvement when downloading many GB files</td></tr>
      <tr><td><a href="http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/browser/trunk/relnotes.txt?rev=967d1b414d860b65">v1.3</a></td><td>February 13, 2009</td><td>repairer, backup command, large files, (S)FTP server, more</td></tr>
      <tr><td><a href="http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/browser/trunk/relnotes.txt?rev=1d68f87dcc513ec7">v1.2</a></td><td>July 21, 2008</td><td>fix a minor security flaw, add operational improvements</td></tr>
      <tr><td><a href="http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/browser/trunk/relnotes.txt?rev=4c71ffb3b50dd447">v1.1</a></td><td>June 11, 2008</td><td>fix rare but serious issues, improve UI</td></tr>
      <tr><td><a href="http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/browser/trunk/relnotes.txt?rev=ef151670dd0e24da">v1.0</a></td><td>March 25, 2008</td><td>It's version 1.0!</td></tr>
      <tr><td><a href="http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/browser/trunk/relnotes.txt?rev=229142e0fae43c02">v0.9</a></td><td>March 13, 2008</td><td>Tahoe is now ready to be relied on for secure storage</td></tr>
      <tr><td><a href="http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/browser/trunk/relnotes.txt?rev=098b593a219b831a">v0.8</a></td><td>February 15, 2008</td><td>"visibility" into the system and more user interfaces</td></tr>
      <tr><td><a href="http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/browser/trunk/relnotes.txt?rev=9033d887a31b2f11">v0.7</a></td><td>January 8, 2008</td><td>decentralized directories and mutable files, a FUSE interface, and new open source licensing options</td></tr>
      <tr><td><a href="http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/browser/trunk/relnotes.txt?rev=1c1d96bc0c8975cc">v0.6.1</a></td><td>October 15, 2007</td><td>packaging, usability, and performance improvements</td></tr>
      <tr><td><a href="http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/browser/trunk/relnotes.txt?rev=db09057d01e834dc">v0.6</a></td><td>September 24, 2007</td><td>improved performance and packaging</td></tr>
      <tr><td><a href="http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/browser/trunk/relnotes.txt?rev=44db5fd8a2b5053b">v0.5.1</a></td><td>August 23, 2007</td><td>fix a security problem in the Web API</td></tr>
      <tr><td><a href="http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/browser/trunk/relnotes.txt?rev=3e1c417f81077c29">v0.5</a></td><td>August 17, 2007</td><td>the Web API and the command-line interface</td></tr>
      <tr><td><a href="http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/browser/trunk/relnotes.txt?rev=e72bff18fab72ff0">v0.4</a></td><td>June 29, 2007</td><td>new mutable, shareable, private directories</td></tr>
      <tr><td><a href="http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/browser/trunk/relnotes.txt?rev=c8077deae5d6b148">v0.3</a></td><td>June 6, 2007</td><td>improved basic functionality</td></tr>
      <tr><td><a href="http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/browser/trunk/relnotes.txt?rev=5610a1b2ced0fc98">v0.2</a></td><td>May 2, 2007</td><td>the first public release, on May 2, 2007 and giving a general overview of why the Tahoe project exists</td></tr>
    </table>
}}}