Setting up your own Hyperdrive site

Installing Node.js

The version of Node.js included in the default Debian repositories is too old, so we have to install a newer version from upstream.

Add the repository to apt:

curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_20.x | sudo -E bash -

Then install the program:

sudo apt install nodejs

Install Hyperdrive in an isolated folder

Create a folder we'll keep all of Hyperdrive's data inside:

mkdir ~/hyperdrive

Go inside that directory:

cd ~/hyperdrive

Install Hyperdrive:

HOME=/home/$USER/hyperdrive/ npm install drives

Setting the HOME variable to ~/hyperdrive ensures that all the installation files are forced inside that folder.

Making a Hyperdrive site

Because we didn't install drives locally, we'll use the npx tool, included in Node.js, to run drives directly from ~/hyperdrive.

Let's make a new Hyperdrive:

HOME=/home/$USER/hyperdrive/ npx drives touch

You'll get output like this:

Storage: /home/lethe/hyperdrive/.drives/corestore
New drive: au94ynnhkeyrjmkrhnfufi3fx6wofows3rujo5rj8ogkzij59zqy
			

The second line has the public key of your site.

Now we'll mirror some files into it:

HOME=/home/$USER/hyperdrive/ npx drives mirror /path/to/original/site/files MyPublicKey --live --verbose

drives will mirror your site to that Hyperdrive and automatically add any changes it sees in the original folder. The program will keep running until you press Control and C to make it quit.