A decentralized peer-to-peer file sharing application built in Rust, inspired by eMule and MLDonkey and adapted to modern infrastructure.

No trackers. No central servers. No relay nodes for data transfer. Files are discovered via a distributed hash table (Kademlia DHT) and keyword search (Gossipsub), and transferred directly between peers. A web control panel and a full command-line client ship in the box, and Rucio can optionally bridge to the eMule / Kad2 network to download ed2k:// files.

• Fully decentralized — peers discover each other via mDNS (local network) and Kademlia DHT (internet)
• Web control panel — manage shares, searches and downloads from the browser; served by the daemon itself, no separate process
• Command-line client — scriptable rucio CLI for shares, searches, downloads and node status, locally or against a remote daemon
• eMule / Kad2 compatibility (opt-in) — search the Kad network and download ed2k:// links alongside native Rucio transfers
• Magnet links — share any file with a single rucio:<hash> link, entirely offline if desired
• Resumable downloads — interrupted transfers pick up where they left off after a restart
• Directory sharing — add a directory and every file inside is indexed, hashed, and announced automatically
• HighID / LowID — nodes behind NAT can still download; publicly reachable nodes serve chunks to everyone
• Single binary — rucio acts as both daemon (ruciod) and CLI depending on how it is invoked

Pre-built images are published to ghcr.io/ogarcia/rucio. The default latest tag is the complete client — daemon, CLI, embedded web panel and eMule support:

docker run -d --name rucio \
  -e RUCIOD_API_LISTEN=0.0.0.0:3003 \
  -v rucio-data:/var/lib/rucio \
  -p 3003:3003/tcp \
  -p 4321:4321/tcp \
  -p 4662:4662/tcp \
  -p 4672:4672/udp \
  ghcr.io/ogarcia/rucio:latest

Ports: 3003 web panel + API, 4321/tcp the Rucio libp2p network, and 4662/tcp + 4672/udp eMule/Kad2. Map the eMule ports so the node is reachable (High-ID) — without them eMule still works but downloads are much slower (Low-ID), and you can drop them entirely if you don't use eMule.

Then open http://localhost:3003/ for the panel. Other flavors are available — latest-headless (daemon only), latest-cli (standalone client) and latest-bootstrap (DHT bootstrap node). See the installation guide for the full matrix.

Download the archive for your platform from the Releases page, unpack it and place the binary on your PATH:

tar -xzf rucio-*-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.tar.gz
install -m755 rucio /usr/local/bin/rucio
ln -s /usr/local/bin/rucio /usr/local/bin/ruciod

The release binary is the complete client with the web panel and eMule support built in.

Windows ships as a portable desktop app instead of a daemon + CLI. Download rucio-<version>-windows-x86_64-portable.zip from the Releases page, extract it into a writable folder (Desktop or Documents, not Program Files) and run Rucio.exe. It bundles the daemon, web panel and eMule support in a single window, and all of its state lives next to the .exe. See the installation guide.

Requires Rust 1.85 or later (uses the 2024 edition).

git clone https://github.com/ogarcia/rucio
cd rucio
cargo build --release
install -m755 target/release/rucio /usr/local/bin/rucio
ln -s /usr/local/bin/rucio /usr/local/bin/ruciod

A plain build gives the daemon and CLI. Add --features emule-compat for eMule support and --features web-ui for the embedded panel — see the installation guide for the details (the panel also needs the Leptos frontend built with trunk).

This walkthrough is for Linux and macOS. On Windows there is nothing to set up — just launch Rucio.exe and the panel opens in its own window.

Start the daemon (keeps running in the foreground; use a service manager or tmux/screen for persistent operation):

ruciod

Open the web panel. If your build includes it (the release binary and container do), the daemon now serves the full control panel at http://127.0.0.1:3003/ — share, search, download and watch progress from the browser. Everything below can be done from there too; the CLI steps that follow are the equivalent for scripting or headless setups.

Share a directory:

rucio share add ~/Movies

Check what you are sharing:

rucio share list

Search the network (--wait blocks until results come in):

rucio search add --wait "big buck bunny"

Download a result (by index from the last search, or by magnet / ed2k link):

rucio download add 1
rucio download add "rucio:abc123...?name=big_buck_bunny.mkv&size=734003200"

Watch progress:

rucio download list --watch

Get a magnet link to share with someone:

rucio share magnet 1          # by row number from `rucio share list`
rucio share magnet --file /path/to/file.mkv   # offline, no daemon needed