BlueCloud

A cryptographic cloud-based file storage system.

Check it out here 🔗

BlueCloud is a cryptography-based cloud storage platform that allows users to upload, store, and share files securely. The application provides users with a simple and intuitive interface to manage their files. Users can upload, manage, secure and download files with ease. The application also provides features such as user authentication and authorization and control over file access permissions. With BlueCloud, users can access their files from anywhere and on any device, making it a convenient and reliable solution for managing files in the cloud.

The application is built as using the microservices architecture, deployed over AWS using the following technologies:

• Backend

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• Frontend

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• DevOps

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Main features

• Microservices architecture
• Secure files storage using Hybrid Cryptography
  • Divides the file into fixed-sized chunks (aka gems)
  • Uses symmetric cryptographic algorithms like AES, ChaCha, AESGCM, AESCCM to encrypt each chunk individually before storing in memory
  • Encrypts the keys as an additional security method using RSA
  • The asymmetric key is either stored in the DB or given to the user.
  • Should the user request the key, it is irreversibly deleted from the DB, giving the user sole access to the file.
• File sharing (under progress)
  • Grant priviledges to users
  • Share without using up any extra memory
• Global access
• Horizontally scalable
• Load balancer
• Containerized
• Authentication
• Authorization
• REST API for provisioning requests

Scope for development

• Grant user the right to define the level of security to be imposed on each file
  • Provide control of gem size
  • Allowing the user to choose which algorithms to use
  • Option between a user-defined password or an asymmetric key for encryption of the key string

Setting up the application:

• Create a network to run all instances on:

docker network ls                       ---> List all networks
docker network inspect <network_id>     ---> Inspect a network

docker network create bcloud-net

• Create volume for store

docker volume create store-vol --opt type=none --opt device=/path/to/store --opt o=bind

• To automatically update node modules to latest versions, run the following commands in root directory of project:

npm install -g npm-check-updates
ncu -u

• <local_port> : <container_port>
• To run the containers, use the following command:

docker-compose up -d

Note: -d flag is used to run the container in background

• This will start two app container instances, one db instance and an Nginx container acting as a load balancer for the two NestJS app containers. The configuration maps port 3000 of the host machine to the ports 3001 and 3002 which are in turn connected to the same ports of each app instances' docker containers, so we can access the load balancer by navigating to http://<ip_address>: in your web browser.

If the NestJS applications fail to connect with the mongodb service inside the containers, try disabling your system firewall using:

sudo ufw disable

• To stop the containers, use the following command:

docker-compose stop

docker-compose down       ---> removes containers altogether

• Check all running containers/images:

docker ps -a

docker images

Configuring nginx

• To change the protocol for load-balancing between the server instances, add one of the methods in the upstream block of nginx.conf file.

...

http {
  upstream app_servers {
    least_conn              ----> Setting protocol
    server app_1:3001;
    server app_2:3002;
  }

  ...
}

• Options:
  • round_robin (Default)
  • least_conn
  • ip_hash
  • least_time

Restarting mongod in case of crash

sudo chown -R mongodb:mongodb /var/lib/mongodb 
sudo chown mongodb:mongodb /tmp/mongodb-27017.sock
service mongod start

Setting up the web app

npm install
npm run start