Tutorial: Posting With Poster

Table of Contents

  1. Preparation
  2. Storing a Record
  3. Getting a Record

When working directly with a Shared Records server, the Poster extension to Firefox is a capable client utility. Poster makes it easy to form any client-side http request and check the results.

Preparation

To use Poster with Shared Records, you'll first need to install Firefox, then Poster. You'll also need to install a utility for generating SHA-1 hashcodes, the unique identifiers derived from stored data that Shared Records uses to reference a Record.

Go to the RecommendedDeveloperEnvironment page where you'll find links to the software you need. From the "Generic Environment" section, select one of the applications that can generate hashcodes. Then download and install Firefox and Poster from the "Web-savvy Environment" section.

Storing a Record

While we recommend encrypting sensitive data with a cryptographic key before storing it on Shared Records, the obfuscation provided by storing a file with only its hashcode as a reference is sufficient for basic security. Follow these steps to post a file which can be distributed using a simple URL.

  1. Launch Firefox
  2. Select the "View->Sidebar->Poster" menu item to reveal the Poster interface
  3. In the URL field, enter the full path to the Shared Records endpoint
  4. Click the "Browse..." button and select the file you want to upload in the File Browser that appears
  5. Calculate the hashcode of the file (this is used as the Record ID)
  6. Append the hashcode to the endpoint, terminated with ".data"
  7. Click the "POST" button to submit the file
  8. When the file has finished uploading a "Response" window will appear with the results of uploading the file
    • "Status: 200" indicates that the file was successfully uploaded

Getting a Record

To retrieve a file that was stored on a Shared Records server, just enter the full URL used to upload the file. Because this is a simple http-get operation, you can enter the URL directly in any browser. Use Poster to diagnose any problems with the Record.

  1. Launch Firefox
  2. Select the "View->Sidebar->Poster" menu item to reveal the Poster interface
  3. In the URL field, enter the full path to the Shared Records endpoint
  4. Click the "GET" button to retrieve the file
  5. When the file has finished uploading a "Response" window will appear with the results of uploading the file
    • "Status: 200" indicates that the file was successfully retrieved