Pre-Dev-Update Thread! Yay! :D

SAFE launcher at version 0.8.1

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Will there be two different launchers released once the testnet continues, or will the launcher gain support for specifying to what network to connect?

How do you handle authenticating apps if two launchers are running?

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Each network has it’s own name. And that’s specified in the Launcher I think. So start Launcher for TEST 8 and it will connect to Vaults running TEST 8 and not the Alpha. But that’s my guess.

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I meant if alpha and test8 launchers are both running, how do apps decide which to authenticate to?

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Would have to be one at a time, as only one can listen on port 8100 at a time.

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Low level API ready to be pulled to RFC.

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@polpolrene Appendable data is just making its way TO rfcs correct? Not already being implemented right?

No RFC’s. But gives us a good look into what’s coming in the near future. Have a look:

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Cool, I just wonder about this:

there is no way for Launcher to know if one app is mimicking another during the authentication process. So Launcher will ask user each time an app starts and tries to register with Launcher, even if Launcher was never killed in the meantime (unlike currently).

Isn’t it the responsibility of the app in question to keep it’s auth token secure?

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It could be and the likes of keytar etc. do need to be further considered. Best will be when apps are delivered from SAFE instead of local hard drives, that’s so 70’s :wink:

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@dirvine what does it take for an app to be delivered from the network rather than downloading and having it access the network (where your data resides and other network features exist)?

Just know the hash of the app and that will be the datamap of the app. This will contain all of the chunk pointers and the app will just load in memory :wink: Then the launcher does not need to worry about all of this stuff, it can contain pointers that you have agreed to use in terms of apps.

I would prefer we never trust any local app as much as possible and certainly not trust local storage of any kind.

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^This guy’s the real deal

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Well, that’s why I’m coding a web app instead of a local one. The browser loads it from SAFE every time the user opens it. It currently keeps its Launcher authorization token in HTML5 Local Storage. Of course, this relies on the browser being secure.

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This is how remoteStorage.js apps work too. I have a couple almost ready but there are some spanners in the works due to CSP/CORS :frowning2:

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Hey I like local apps and storage. I grew up without internet and there are still times I have to make do without it. Not being dependent on the net is a good thing. I get what you’re saying but I’d suggest what we need would be akin to an airlock of some kind, kind of like how if you’re in a preasurized space you don’t “trust” a depresurized space else you’ll be eating vacume. It’s not like going out EVA or whatever is a bad thing, it just has risks attatched to it that need to be accounted for.

If an app was uploaded to SAFE and the local copy was left unchanged, would the hash change if it was uploaded a second time? What I’m thinking is one could upload a clean version of one’s app/document/files whatever and have it vetted. Then use that as a control. So if your files got infected or corrrupted later on you’d have a clean copy to compare them against.

Personally I don’t fully trust apps that only function online because that requires that one BE online all the time in order to run them. Not everyone has a permanant high speed internet connection. I know plenty of people who don’t even have internet. So being able to use SAFE at point X, remotely take away your data or run your apps and then reconnect at time and location Y is important. It would be no good for farming but farming is only requied to actually upload data to SAFE. So say an app required to upload data. You could set it aside in a local file(s), estimate how much it would cost in safecoin, and then check, thus updating the price, and ask again to upload when one reconnected to the network. Again that would require the need for an airlock.

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I’m not sure if this is possible, but if OfflineFirst apps could load from SAFEnetwork and if you later don’t have internet, could load them from your browser cache, you would get the best of both worlds.

OfflineFirst apps continue to work if you lose your connection and automatically sync with your server - SAFEnetwork in our case - when you next connect. This is what I’m building with RemoteStorage.js and it’s neat. Haven’t tried what I just suggested tho. Yet :slight_smile:

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Link

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10 open Pull Requests open in the RFC repo. This one is new:

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Like mentioned in the Dev-Update:

LINK

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