Package Exports

This package does not declare an exports field, so the exports above have been automatically detected and optimized by JSPM instead. If any package subpath is missing, it is recommended to post an issue to the original package (bfs-vault) to support the "exports" field. If that is not possible, create a JSPM override to customize the exports field for this package.

Readme

BFS — Backup File System

Distributed backup CLI tool for Node.js. Packs a directory into a binary blob, compresses it with deflate, optionally encrypts with AES-256-GCM, splits using Reed-Solomon erasure coding, and distributes shards across multiple storage providers. Any N of N+K shards can reconstruct the original data — losing up to K providers does not cause data loss.

bfs init --name photos
bfs push
bfs pull

Features

Reed-Solomon erasure coding — configurable N data + K parity shards
Deflate compression — enabled by default, per-file ZIP with smart skip for already-compressed formats (images, video, archives)
AES-256-GCM encryption — optional, Argon2id key derivation
Provider-agnostic — local disk, USB drives, NAS (Google Drive, FTP, SSH — coming soon)
Versioned backups — every push creates a new numbered version
Self-describing shards — each shard contains the full location map; one shard is enough to discover the rest
Disaster recovery — rebuild .bfs/ config from a single shard when everything else is lost
Interactive REPL — run bfs without arguments for a guided prompt
CI/cron support — all commands support non-interactive flags

Requirements

Node.js >= 23
Minimum 4 GB RAM (BFS uses ~25% of system memory for Reed-Solomon encoding)
Windows only: Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable 2015–2022 (x64) — required by the Argon2 native binding (Windows 11 desktop typically has this pre-installed; Windows Server usually does not)

Installation

npm install -g bfs-vault

Quick start

# 1. Go to the directory you want to back up
cd ~/documents

# 2. Initialize vault (interactive — asks for providers, scheme, encryption)
bfs init --name documents

# 3. Back up
bfs push

# 4. Restore
bfs pull

Commands

Command	Description
`bfs init [--name <name>]`	Initialize a new vault in the current directory
`bfs push`	Back up (new version or overwrite, based on config)
`bfs pull [--version N] [-y]`	Restore files from backup (default: latest version); `-y/--yes` auto-confirms overwrite
`bfs status`	Show vault status
`bfs versions`	List all backup versions with health status
`bfs verify`	Check shard availability and health across providers
`bfs prune [--keep-last N]`	Delete old backup versions from providers
`bfs recovery`	Rebuild `.bfs/` from providers (disaster recovery)
`bfs clear`	Delete pending cache from an interrupted push or pull
`bfs scheme set <N> <K>`	Change the Reed-Solomon N/K scheme
`bfs provider add`	Add a new provider to the vault
`bfs provider list`	List configured providers
`bfs provider remove [name]`	Remove or replace a provider (with heal option)

Global options:

--cwd <dir> — vault working directory (overrides current directory)
--lang <code> — set UI language permanently (en, pl)

How it works

push:  scan dir → pack blob → [compress] → [encrypt] → Reed-Solomon encode → shards → upload × (N+K)
pull:  read manifest → download N shards → Reed-Solomon decode → [decrypt] → [decompress] → write files

Each provider holds exactly one shard per version. No single provider has enough data to reconstruct the backup. The location map of all shards is embedded in each shard header — one surviving shard is sufficient to locate and download the rest.

Reed-Solomon scheme

Configure N (data shards) and K (parity shards) during bfs init:

Scheme	Providers needed	Can lose up to
3+1	4	1 provider
3+2	5	2 providers
5+3	8	3 providers

CI / cron usage

All modifying commands support non-interactive flags:

# Initialize
bfs init --ci --name docs --data-shards 3 --parity-shards 2 \
  --provider local:nas1:/backup \
  --provider local:nas2:/backup \
  --provider local:usb1:/backup \
  --provider local:usb2:/backup \
  --provider local:usb3:/backup

# Scheduled backup (crontab)
bfs push --new --password "$VAULT_PASS"

# Prune — keep last 14 versions
bfs prune --keep-last 14 --yes

Providers

Currently supported:

Type	Description
`local`	Local directory, USB drive, network mount

Planned: Google Drive, FTP/FTPS, SSH/SFTP.

Versioning

BFS uses Semantic Versioning.

bfs-vault