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ReVault – new secure archive format

Article news.ycombinator.com

ReVault – new secure archive format

reVault is a new, secure-by-default archive format called a lockbox, designed to be simple to use.

I've been working on reVault for about 2 years. It was originally written in Dart, but with the improvements in AI, I decided to port it to Rust using AI.

It's now in beta, so I'm looking for feedback, particularly around the different language bindings.

A lockbox is encrypted, signed and compressed by default. Each can be disabled selectively.

  - Hybrid post-quantum or passphrase encryption, including metadata.
  - Zstd compression.
  - Pure Rust libraries wherever possible.
We intend to phase out remaining C code as alternatives become available. The project has been scanned using OpenAI's Daybreak cyber security tools.

The manual is a work in progress: https://docs.revault.onepub.dev/

reVault supports Linux, macOS and Windows, x64 and arm64, plus Wasm. The core is Rust, with bindings for C/C++, Java, Dart, Python, Ruby, JS/TypeScript, Go, C#, Kotlin, Lua, PHP and Swift.

Within a lockbox you can store:

  - Files, directories, permissions and symlinks.
  - Variables.
  - Forms.
Variables, forms and the lockbox itself can have descriptions.

reVault uses a portable vault (just another lockbox with structured content) to hold your keys, contacts' keys, lockbox aliases and form definitions.

It ties into your platform's secure store, so logging into your desktop unlocks your vault. You don't have to enter a passphrase every time you access a lockbox. You can disable this.

There are lots of shortcuts. Creating a lockbox stores an alias in your vault, based on its filename or a name you choose:

  lbx create /some/path/mybox.lbox
  lbx mybox open --duration 1h
  lbx mybox var set KEY VALUE
Set a default lockbox and you can leave its name out:

  lbx session default mybox
  lbx var get KEY
You can mirror a directory tree into a lockbox and update it when the directory changes:

  lbx store.lbox mirrors project create --from ./project --to /projects/project
  lbx store.lbox mirrors update
The API lets you read, write and seek within files without extracting them to the filesystem. Each lockbox has a table of contents, so extracting a single file from a multi-gigabyte lockbox is fast.

Recovery

Updates are transactional, with automatic rollback for failed updates. The format is designed for recovery: content is stored in pages, allowing unaffected content to be recovered if part of a lockbox is corrupted.

Sharing

An encrypted lockbox is more useful if you can share it.

reVault has an open-source keyserver for exchanging public keys, with validation through a second trusted channel. It's still experimental.

OnePub has donated a server to run a single keyserver. If you're interested in donating resources, I'd like to bring up a second redundant server. It's pure Rust, uses under 100 MB RSS and supports rate limits.

To publish your default profile's public key:

  lbx vault profiles email you@example.com
  lbx vault profiles publish
Give the publish code to your contact. They can import your key:

  lbx vault contacts receive <publish-code> <contact-name>
Display your profile's fingerprint and exchange it through a second trusted channel:

  lbx vault profiles fingerprint
Repeat the process in the opposite direction to get their key. Once you have it, grant them access to your default lockbox:

  lbx access grant alice
You can then email the encrypted lockbox to Alice.

To install the CLI and get started:

  cargo install revault_cli
  lbx vault init
  lbx completion install
Completion installation detects your shell. To diagnose issues:

  lbx doctor
The language bindings are published to their respective package repositories.

I'm looking for constructive criticism of the project on its own merits, particularly the APIs and language bindings. I'm not interested in a debate about using AI.

Discussion 2 comments · 2 points · bsutto · 6h
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