MaidSafe Dev Update - September 14, 2017

I missed the announcement last night as bed called. Very nice to see great progress. Especially the wee mobile app surprise! Well done team! :slight_smile:

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Keep on Truckin’

Keep on Truckin

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Feel no pressure please! If I could I’d give you a back rub. Take some time off. Whater ever it takes, no rush. This is the most important project I have heard about in a long time. You have delivered so much already. I’m just grateful. Cheers!

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Some people look past this but I couldn’t agree more. You guys and gals should not only get support because you’re building something that will benefit humanity but because you’re good folks to begin with and deserve encouragement on a personal level. I’m pulling for you everyone! I hope I don’t miss anyone @dirvine @nicklambert @frabrunelle @bochaco @hunterlester @Viv @ustulation @Krishna_Kumar @marcin @canndrew @Shona @bart @AndreasF @michaelsproul, @Shankar, I know there are more so @maidsafe you make us proud everyday

How could I forget Nakita!!? @nbaksalyar

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Since I first found this project there were so many wow moments. Unfortunately with familiarity the awesomeness of what’s been accomplished is overshadowed by the excitement of what tomorrow brings. This surprise is another wow moment and a great reminder as to why I spend my life on this damn forum. Thanks Maidsafe!!

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@happybeing @Mindphreaker , the number of clients can connect at a time is limited to four, let me explain in more detail how you should count them so you know when you are hitting that limit.

When the browser is launched, the Authenticator plugin is loaded, it will create a connection to be able to either register you on the network if you are creating an account or to check the credentials upon an login. This will consume the first client (1 out of 4 allowed clients).

After you logged in, you will see that an authorisation request pops up, this is the browser itself trying to register as a SAFE app to then be able to fetch/save the state, i.e. your bookmarks and browsing history. This information was stored locally before, but since it’s private information we thought it’s better to store it only on the SAFE network within your account. Therefore the browser needs to have your authorisation to connect and be able to store this data on your SAFE account. If you are wondering now what’s the difference between this and any other SAFE app requesting access, the answer is simply “there is no difference at all, it’s just a SAFE app, just embedded in the browser”. Therefore, if you authorise the browser app you are using one more connection (2 out of 4 now).

At this point, you may be trying to open up a safesite, so you open a tab and enter a URL, this is when the safe-app-plugin creates its connection to be able to fetch the site. This will be a single connection used by the safe-app-plugin to fetch all safesites no matter how many tabs/sites you open. In this case the connection is an unregistered connection, i.e. a read-only connection to the network to read only data publicly available, and this is why there is no authorisation request for the user, but it still counts as a client connection. This becomes your third connection (3 out of 4).

When you open a safesite, this can either be a static site which doesn’t use the DOM API so it doesn’t need a connection. But it can be a dynamic site/webapp which does connect to the network either unregistered or registered (it needs user authorisation). As an example of this, the safe://chaty.test app creates an unregistered connection upon being loaded to fetch the chats list, and it closes it and re-opens a new connection (this time a registered connection) when you hit the button to send a message. Therefore, in our scenario, an app like this will have the fourth available connection whilst its tab is open (4 out of 4).

If you try to open any other app which creates a connection, regardless if it’s opened form the browser, a desktop app, (ohh!..I almost forget about this, but now I also have to include it here in the explanation) or from a mobile app :wink: , you should get a connection error since you’ve reached the limit already. So at this point you can close any of the apps that is using a connection to free it, and then be allowed to connect with another app.

As you can imagine, you can decide to not allow the browser app if you are not interested in storing the browsing history or bookmarks on your account, and that would allow you to have one less connection used and available for other app. Or you could avoid opening a safesite so the plugin never creates its own connection if you are trying to play with desktop apps.

The main purpose of this explanation is so you can realise if the issue is due to the clients’ limit, or perhaps an invalid/non-white-listed IP, or something else.

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Thankyou all of you - u guys are amazing and this project is beautiful. Hopefully u all get that sleep you deserve tonight :slight_smile:

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I know how hard it is to get a product out the door, and I appreciate the work that goes in to it. My comment questioning the release for alpha 3 was more to be taken tongue in cheek :slight_smile:

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On a scale of 1 to Red Kola, you guys are Irn Bru. Awesome work!

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Thanks a lot for this information. :bulb: I didn’t know about the ‘invisible’ services, I just assumed the authenticator couldn’t count! What is the reason for limiting the number of apps to 4 by the way? What sort of extra pressure would be put on the testnet if it were increased to 5 or 6?

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Very helpful indeed Gabriel, both for development - I can now deny the browser and keep Web Hosting Manager open instead - because a Web App consumes two connections: one to get site, another by using the DOM! :slight_smile: … and for the greater understanding of how this works, which is very valuable too.

Great work team, and talking to everyone working hard at MaidSafe, you all deserve a medal for getting to alpha2 - which is set to be incredibly slick and robust for an early alpha, and of great interest and value to everyone from potential and active developers, early adopters, journalists, visionaries you name 'em!

I hope you are all well and if you need a break will feel that it is well deserved and OK to take one - because I think people are more productive if they take breaks and don’t work long and hard for significant periods unless absolutely necessary. Each of us is different of course, so it’s important to learn how you personally function at your own best and not try too hard to work like, or be a productive as, somebody else.

Good luck everyone, and thank you. I have lots to play with so I’m a very happy being :wink:

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I would prefer @Viv, or @ustulation maybe, to explain how to do the math here since I’m not certain about this.

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Thanks @bochaco for your detailed explanation and the trick with disabling the browser app! I know the limit is currently important to prevent spamming attacks. Question is really if it has to be so strict. I think even the suggested small increase to 5 or 6 connections would be helpful for development / testing.

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Thanks for all the work you’ve put into this! It’s truly amazing to watch safenet progress. :grinning:

I am having some difficulty downloading the safe browser. It always fails. I am behind a pretty slow connection. Downloading it is estimated to take 30min. Could it be that github resets the connection when it takes too long?

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@Avi I’ve had this same problem on OS X if I just do one download at a time and don’t navigate anywhere while watching progress it should finish fine.

Looking forward to the 21/09/2017 update, you’ve really set expectations high…

“Hey guys, here’s the Alpha 2 Release!
Oh… and by the way while we were at it… we cured cancer and solved world hunger… plus we’ve got Kim Jong Un to promise to stop being such a bell-end”.

Just another week in Troon.

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David. Thank you and your team. I concur with your statement!

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Great to see mobile already being worked on. I’m someone who still prefers to use mainly desktop computers, but in today’s market supporting mobile makes a project much more likely to take off.

mmm, I am getting an error when trying to authenticate applications to the 0.5.2 ( and 0.5.1 ) browser.

When I click ‘allow’, the browser opens a popup , complaining for a file too long , and stops there :

/home/xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/safe-browser-v0.5.2-linux-x64/safe-mv0lm1hawrzywzllndlymhvc3rpbmdtyw5hz2vy:AQAAAIZq7s4AAAAAAAAAACAAAAAAAAAANhKBvmBtLdgG1kiQwykWzc5GNbckkhS9cQuQONDQgVUgAAAAAAAAAFMi2_wOrvvwjAsVIuQVq7dqxuP4lQMa8PdXKuHa5Gc6IAAAAAAAAADsJhE_taL3AXgl4gEJIMNqhhWorQvskhclEBp0j9b4EUAAAAAAAAAAlwH8pBnd2tDr2T7GFWtGhxi1XV615K2MYyQswlU1htXsJhE_taL3AXgl4gEJIMNqhhWorQvskhclEBp0j9b4ESAAAAAAAAAA3-B59To-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-76qKGOyWpg6AAAAAAAAGAAAAAAAAAD3EAdII0BkSDkpzRUxC82nWegKC5XsxGE=: File name too long

this is on linux x64 fedora 21, it works fine on android, though.

Every single time I open it, I have to repeat the “secret” and “password” and click “log in”. This is baffling; why isn’t that stored on the computer like a “wallet.dat” of private key(s)?

In fact, why does it make you create an “account” at all? What’s the point of the “secret” and “password” being something that the user actually types in? Why isn’t it created automatically the first time you start it?