In malai 0.2.5, we have added TCP support, which means you can expose any TCP service to others using malai, without opening the TCP service related port to Internet. With malai installed on both ends, any TCP service can be securely tunneled over it.
It can be used to secure your SSH service, or securely share your database server.
GitHub: https://github.com/kulfi-project/kulfi (star us!)
Would love feedback, questions, or ideas — thanks!
PS: We have also added `malai folder`, which lets you share (readonly) the content of a folder with others.
What is the DNS story for this platform? Or are you intending to be kind of like a replacement for Syncthing where each endpoint has to explicitly approve the other and thus discovery is left as an exercise to the reader?
Actually, even after further thought, I am still able to rename my peers in Syncthing, and unless one has to go to the dashboard for getting that Talk App link(? button?) all the time, it's been my experience that folks will always want aliases for ginormous hex strings
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p.s. you have some broken images in your Journey docs
Kulfi App is a web browser that talks kulfi protocol natively, so you can open kulfi://<id52> natively. malai is the server side part of this story, and can expose existing HTTP/TCP services over kulfi:// network.
For DNS, here is my initial deign/thought: https://github.com/kulfi-project/kulfi/discussions/55
For access control, we are working on a "what-to-do" service, which is an bunch HTTP/JSON APIs, that will be called by the malai (which runs on your server, or even as part of Django/Node/Golang once we wrap malai as a cffi library, and write corresponding Python/Node etc packages). You will be able to write the what-to-do in any framework you like, and we will maintain a general purpose open source what-to-do service.
The malai stuff is relative not very interesting (we write some HTTP/TCP services/proxies that forward their calls over iroh connection, and write the other side to bridge back to HTTP/tcp). Code should help, or come to our discord: https://malai.sh/discord/ (currently it will say fastn, we are in the process of changing it to FifthTry server or something, we do not want to maintain multiple discord servers, and thinking of putting all FifthTry open source stuff on a single discord server).
Does the same thing as a bunch of other systems (e.g. Tor) without providing any comparison of what this one does better.
Docs pages are TODO, certainly don't explain how it works.
Website is "Copyright 2025 YourCompany, Inc."
Discord link goes to something called "fastn" with apparently no relation to Kulfi.
No explanation of how it works
Comments in this thread reveal a bunch of obscure components that also don't have much details.
The comparison posts, TODO, copyright etc we will do/fix when we get around to it. It's all open source, you can send PRs as well.
Anyway, project seems great and all, but I'll wait for pista. :)
-- import: fastn
-- fastn.package: lets-talk-template.fifthtry.site
-- fastn.dependency: lets-talk.fifthtry.site provided-via: lets-talk-template.fifthtry.site/lets-talk
-- fastn.dependency: design-system.fifthtry.site provided-via: lets-talk-template.fifthtry.site/ds
-- fastn.dependency: lets-auth.fifthtry.site
-- fastn.app: Lets Auth App mount-point: /-/auth/ package: lets-auth.fifthtry.site
-- fastn.app: Lets Talk App mount-point: / package: lets-talk.fifthtry.site
The website, kulfi.app and malai.sh, and fastn.com itself, and FifthTry.com as well are all built using fastn.
But it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the current company? Are you a Notion-like editor still? Because the editor section of the site says “coming soon” even though your YC page says you were in the Winter 2021 batch. I guess I’m not really clear on any of this and how it relates to Malai.
fastn is done in Rust, and has relatively small foot print. It is language, compiler, package manager, web server, wasm runner, all in one, and technically can run on say a mobile device, on a "Amazon Fire Stick" like mini TV module, you webcam and so on. fastn is probably the only web server you can run on those devices (not yet tested, but it should be).
The issue is those web servers do not have public IPs (nor should they, as that can expose them to security risks), so we are building a peer to peer network, an identity based network, so you do not have to have accessible IP/port to access the web service.
The network we are calling Kulfi net, and malai is a network toolkit for kulfi net, it exposes various services (TCP/HTTP) over kulfi net.
Kulfi itself is going to be a browser, that can talk kulfi protocol natively (as currently we need a "http bridge", eg kulfi.site that we are running, or you can install malai and run on your server).
Kulfi "browser", will also come with fastn built in, so you can run a web server on your phone and someone else can access that web server from another phone, talking http over kulfi protocol, and we can get near ideal networking solution (no intermediary, no need for public IP, etc).
Does this make sense?
[1]: we are built on top of https://www.iroh.computer so their caveats apply, and while we do run a http-over-kulfi over http-over-tcp bridge, you do not have to use it, you can run your own, and soon when kulfi browser is ready, you will not need the bridge. Checkout this work in progress kulfi browser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw_GmbtxCHw
Kulfi App is going to be a browser like Google Chrome, available on various app stores, and it will speak both http over tcp and http over kulfi. Kulfi app acts like client (but is also a server, so on your iPhone tomorrow you can install Kulfi, which will let you access any http over kulfi site, and also will run a web server which is exposed over kulfi net for others to access, so my Android phone's Kulfi browser can connect with the your iPhones Kulfi's web server, with no intermediary [1]).
malai is ready now, and it is a Swiss army knife toolkit for working with kulfi net. Currently malai can expose a HTTP or TCP service over kulfi net.
Malai also has a "http bridge" feature, which bridges any malai exposed http over kulfi service with the http over tcp, so people can use regular browsers to access malai exposed HTTP services.
[1]: we are using https://www.iroh.computer/blog/iroh-dns, so their caveats apply.
I feel like I'm missing a lot of context to understand what's being shared here.
SSH is one of the most secure network daemons ever devised. This is not to say that there is never any need to harden SSH, but given that people usually secure services behind SSH, I find the words “secure your SSH service” strange.
That said, I am no stranger to bastion/jump hosts, but those usually involve accessing one ssh host through another ssh host.
We love to see new ideas in this space since we think tunnels are great for prototyping and app development.
Usually my first question is what makes this different than the many existing options. Looks like the answer in this case is that it's p2p and built on iroh (which is built on QUIC), which I find interesting. Would love a PR on the list.
I use and like tailscale for similar purposes, but I can see why some people might prefer to skip that aspect, especially.
Tailscale funnel is publicly accessible
