Databoxer

A data encryption program, which focuses on speed, safety and user-friendliness

• About
• Features
• Installation
• Usage
• Development

💡 About

Databoxer aims to be a lightweight cross-platform solution for file encryption, while also being efficient and safe. It is not a drop-in replacement for already long-existing encryption tools, such as Bitlocker, but instead more of an alternative.

It is aimed at both average and more advanced users. Possible use cases can range from simple local data protection and access restriction to wireless data transfer and removable drive safety insurance. It's up to the user to decide how to use the program, which is one of the Databoxer's key principles: to be flexible and efficient.

Databoxer operates based on the ChaCha20 encryption algorithm in combination with the Poly1305 universal hash function to perform its encryption operations. It proved to be much more safe and fast than the most popular AES algorithm used in many other similar programs. The files are encrypted using a randomly generated 32-byte encryption key and per-file 12-byte nonce, which ensures ciphertext's uniqueness across different files.

📂 Installation

Databoxer is cross-platform and is supported on all major platforms (Windows, Linux and macOS)

[!NOTE] The latest release of Databoxer has all the core features fully implemented, but it is still considered to be a beta version. Many of those features are still being expanded upon and many new ones will be added. Consider all versions under 1.0.0 to be prone to many interface, functionality and API changes.

With Cargo

This is the recommended way to install Databoxer

cargo install databoxer

From releases

1. Go to Releases
2. Select the version you want to download
3. Download the binary for your system (Windows, Linux or macOS)

From source

From latest commit at master branch via Cargo

cargo install --git https://github.com/duckysmacky/copper.git

⭐ Features

👤 Profile system

One of the key features of Databoxer is its profile management system. The user of the application can create different profiles in order to store keys and manage encrypted files. Each profile has a unique encryption key which is used to encrypt/decrypt files and can be protected by user-defined password.

Later down the line Databoxer is planned to have support for native keyring toolchains, such as GnuPG, Kleopatra and CryptoAPI (CNG) (for Windows).

📦 Boxfile file format

The encrypted files are "boxed" into a .box file and stored in that way on the drive. A Boxfile (.box file) is a custom file format which uses different techniques in order to ensure safety of the data, verify its content integrity and embed additional information about the file.

🕹️ Usage

Currently, the program provides a CLI which is used for all major operations. The program can be run with databoxer <COMMAND>. The complete list of commands can be viewed with databoxer --help. Below are shown usage examples of some of the main commands.

Encrypting files

Example demonstration (click to expand)

databoxer box <PATH>...

Multiple paths can be supplied for multi-file encryption, as well as directories (with optional recursive feature -R).

Output files will be encrypted and formatted into a custom .box file type with a random UUID as a name. User also can specify the output location for each file with a -o flag. Additionally, the user can also enable metadata encryption with the -e flag, which will encrypt the file's metadata (name, size, etc.).

Decrypting files

Example demonstration (click to expand)

databoxer unbox <PATH>...

Functions similarly to encryption: support for multiple paths and directories. The original file name can be supplied instead of a UUID to easily identify files (only if the metadata encryption wasn't enabled during encryption).

The input files have to have a .box file type. During decryption the program will restore original file name and extension.

Configuring profiles

Example demonstration (click to expand)

databoxer profile <ACTION>

A new profile can be created with the profile new command. Each profile should have a name and password, which is asked every time a profile-related feature is used by the user (e.g. encryption, as it requires profile's encryption key).

Other profile manipulation actions include select which profile to use, delete to delete one and list to list all other existing profiles.

Manipulating encryption keys

Example demonstration (click to expand)

databoxer key <ACTION>

The key subcommand is used to control the profile's stored encryption key. It can be outputted it in a formatted hex string using the key get command.

A new key can be created with the key new command, generating a fresh encryption key and overwriting the old one. A key can also be set from the outside (using a hex string) using the key set <KEY> command. The key has to be a 32-byte key to be accepted (refer to key get command's output for how the key should look to be valid).

🧰 Development

As stated previously this project is in very active development. The current implementation of many things might completely change by the time it is fully released (1.0.0).

Feature plan

These plans could change during future development

• [x] User profile system
• [x] .box file format
• [x] Multiple profiles/keys support
• [ ] Support for custom user config (using config.toml)
• [ ] File data compression
• [ ] Improved profile storage (local database)
• [ ] Batch file encryption (boxfile archive)
• [ ] OS-native toolchain support (GnuPG, Kleopatra, CryptoAPI, etc.)
• [ ] GUI interface

Project structure

src/ - Source code
|--- cli/ - CLI command handling
|    |--- handlers/ - Command handlers
|    |--- io/ - Input/output handling
|--- core/ - Core functionality
|    |--- app/ - Main application logic
|    |--- data/ - File and data handling
|    |--- encryption/ - Cryptography-related functionality
|    |--- os/ - OS-specific functionality
|--- utils/ - Utility functions
|--- gui/ - GUI interface (planned)
test/ - Integration & unit tests
|--- common/ - Common test utilities

Contribution

Any kind of contribution is very welcomed! The codebase is well-documented and actively maintained, so it would not be too hard to get started with it.