Some games ship an `account_name.txt` file somewhere under the unpacked `local/` tree (location varies per game). After install or update, write the configured username into the first such file we find so the game launches under the user's account instead of whatever default the archive contains. The search is a deterministic alphabetical DFS rooted at the install staging dir (`.local.installing/`, which becomes `local/` on rename), stopping at the first regular-file match. Symlinks named `account_name.txt` are skipped (`is_file()` is false for symlinks on Linux), so a hostile archive can't redirect the write outside the game tree. If no `account_name.txt` exists anywhere in the install, the step is a no-op. If the write fails, the existing install rollback (cleanup of staging on fresh installs, restore from backup on updates) handles it — no partial state is left behind. The username flows from the Tauri layer, where it is already sanitized by `sanitize_username`, down through `PeerCommand` variants (`InstallGame`, `DownloadGameFiles`, `DownloadGameFilesWithOptions`) into `install`/`update`, which now take an `Option<&str> account_name`. For the "install game that isn't downloaded yet" path the username has to bridge the async gap between the `GetGame` / `FetchLatestFromPeers` request and the eventual `GotGameFiles` event; we park it in a per-game-id map on `LanSpreadState` and pop it when forwarding the download command. The map is also cleared defensively on `cancel_download`, `DownloadGameFilesFailed`, and `DownloadGameFilesAllPeersGone` so a stale entry can't bleed into a subsequent install with a different username. `PeerCommand` is the in-process command channel, not the wire protocol; no on-wire types changed, so the "one wire version" policy is preserved. The peer-cli harness keeps passing `account_name: None` since it tests peer interop, not user-facing settings. # Test Plan Unit tests in `crates/lanspread-peer/src/install/transaction.rs`: - `install_overwrites_first_account_name_file` — unpacker creates `a/account_name.txt` and `z/account_name.txt`; after install with username "Alice", `a/` is overwritten and `z/` is left untouched, pinning the sorted-DFS "first match wins" behavior. - `install_account_name_missing_file_is_noop` — install with a username but no `account_name.txt` anywhere in the archive succeeds and creates no spurious file. Manual GUI check: in Settings, set a username; install a game whose archive contains `account_name.txt`; open `local/` and confirm the file now holds the configured username. Repeat for the update flow (install, change username, click update). Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
lanspread-peer
lanspread-peer is the networking runtime that lets Lanspread nodes find each
other on the local network, exchange library metadata, and transfer game files.
It is designed to run headless – other crates (most notably
lanspread-tauri-deno-ts) embed it and drive it through a channel-based API.
Runtime Overview
start_peer(game_dir, tx_events, peer_game_db, unpacker, catalog)boots the asynchronous runtime in the background and returns aPeerRuntimeHandlewhose sender controls the peer. The injectedUnpackerkeeps archive extraction out of the peer crate's platform layer, and the catalog set gates which local game roots are announced or served.PeerCommandrepresents the small control surface exposed to the UI layer:ListGames,GetGame,FetchLatestFromPeers,DownloadGameFiles,InstallGame,UninstallGame,RemoveDownloadedGame,CancelDownload,SetGameDir, andGetPeerCount.PeerEventenumerates everything the peer runtime reports back to the UI: library snapshots, download/install/uninstall lifecycle updates, runtime failures, and peer membership changes.PeerGameDBcollects remote peer metadata. It aggregates discovered peers’Gamedefinitions, tracks the latest ETI version per title, and keeps the last seen list ofGameFileDescriptionentries for each peer.
Internally the peer runtime owns four long-lived tasks that run for the lifetime of the process:
- Server component (
run_server_component) – listens for QUIC connections, advertises via mDNS, and servesRequest::ListGames,Request::GetGame,Request::GetGameFileData, andRequest::GetGameFileChunkby reading from the local game directory. - Discovery loop (
run_peer_discovery) – uses thelanspread-mdnshelper to discover other peers. The blocking mDNS work is executed on a dedicated thread viatokio::task::spawn_blockingso that the Tokio runtime remains responsive. - Ping service (
run_ping_service) – periodically issues QUIC ping requests to keep peer liveness up to date and prunes stale entries fromPeerGameDB. - Local game monitor (
run_local_game_monitor) – watches the configured game directory and each game root non-recursively, gates per-ID rescans while operations are active, emits local-library changes separately from active operation snapshots, and runs a 300-second fallback scan for missed events.
scan_local_library maintains a lightweight on-disk index and produces both a
GameDB and protocol summaries. A game is downloaded only when its root-level
version.ini sentinel exists; local/ being a directory is the install signal.
Networking and File Transfer
- Transport is handled by
s2n-quic; TLS cert/key material is compiled in from the repository root. - Protocol messages are JSON-encoded structures defined in
lanspread-proto::{Request, Response}. - File transfers stream raw bytes over dedicated bidirectional QUIC streams.
peer::send_game_file_datasends entire files, whilepeer::send_game_file_chunkservices ranged requests.
Download Pipeline
When the UI asks to download a game:
- The UI first issues
PeerCommand::GetGamefor a new download, orPeerCommand::FetchLatestFromPeersfor an update that must bypass local archives. The selected peers are queried viarequest_game_details_from_peer, and their file manifests are merged insidePeerGameDB. - Once the UI receives
PeerEvent::GotGameFiles, it forwards the selected file list back withPeerCommand::DownloadGameFiles. download_game_filesstarts a version-sentinel transaction, parks any oldversion.inias.version.ini.discarded, prepares non-sentinel files, emitsPeerEvent::DownloadGameFilesBegin, and builds a per-peer plan (build_peer_plans) that round-robins file chunks across the available peers that advertise the latest version.- Each plan is executed in its own task (
download_from_peer). Chunk requests use per-chunk QUIC streams and write into pre-created files. The chunk writer keeps existing data intact and only truncates when we intentionally fall back to a full file transfer, which prevents corruption when multiple peers fill different regions of the same file. DownloadProgressTrackersamples byte counters, transfer speed, and the number of unique peers that are actively streaming chunks. The Tauri UI sees those values together through the regular download-progress event.version.inichunks are buffered in memory and committed last via.version.ini.tmpfollowed by an atomic rename. Failures are accumulated and retried (up toMAX_RETRY_COUNT) viaretry_failed_chunks; failed downloads sweep.version.ini.tmpand.version.ini.discardedwithout restoring the previous sentinel. Cancelled downloads also discard the peer-owned download payload while preservinglocal/and install transaction metadata.- After a successful sentinel commit,
PeerEvent::DownloadGameFilesFinishedis emitted and the peer auto-runs the install transaction.
PeerCommand::CancelDownload cancels the tracked download token for an active
transfer. The transfer task remains responsible for clearing active_operations,
discarding partial payload files, and refreshing the settled local snapshot, so
the UI continues to treat active-operation snapshots as the single source of
truth for whether a download is still running.
Install Transactions
Install, update, uninstall, downloaded-file removal, and startup recovery live
under src/install/.
Install-side operation intent is stored atomically under the configured peer
state directory, at games/<game_id>/install_intent.json. Game roots still use
Lanspread-owned .local.installing/ and .local.backup/ directories marked by
.lanspread_owned. Startup recovery combines the recorded intent with the
observed filesystem state and only deletes reserved directories when intent or
marker ownership proves they belong to Lanspread.
Downloaded-file removal is deliberately separate from uninstall: it only accepts
catalog IDs that are direct children of the configured game directory, refuses
installed or in-flight roots, and deletes the whole game root only after finding
a regular root-level version.ini sentinel.
Legacy launcher-owned files in game directories are migrated by a dedicated pre-start phase. Normal install, recovery, scan, and transfer paths use only the configured state directory for launcher-owned metadata.
Integration with lanspread-tauri-deno-ts
The Tauri application embeds this crate in
crates/lanspread-tauri-deno-ts/src-tauri/src/lib.rs:
LanSpreadStateholds onto the peer control channel, the latest aggregatedGameDB, per-game operation state, the catalog set, and the user-selected game directory.- The Tauri commands (
request_games,install_game,update_game,remove_downloaded_game, andupdate_game_directory) translate UI actions intoPeerCommands. In particular,update_game_directoryvalidates the filesystem path before storing it, loads the bundled catalog on first use, kicks off the peer runtime on demand, and mirrors the installed/uninstalled state into the UI-facing database. - A background task consumes
PeerEvents and fans them out to the front-end via Tauri publish/subscribe events (games-list-updated,game-download-*,game-install-*,game-uninstall-*,peer-*). The Tauri crate now only provides the unrar sidecar through the injectedUnpacker; rollback and cleanup live in the peer transaction code.
Security & Operational Notes
- All QUIC connections are TLS encrypted; the shipped certificates are suitable for local-network trust but should be rotated for production deployments.
- Peer discovery is restricted to the local link via mDNS.
- Long-running blocking mDNS calls are isolated on dedicated threads which keeps the async runtime responsive even when discovery takes a long time.
- File writes are chunk-safe: partial chunk downloads open files without
truncating existing data, and root-level
version.iniis written only after the rest of the download has succeeded.
Known Limitations
PeerGameDBcurrently models the latest metadata that other peers advertise. If the UI needs to surface titles that only exist locally, additional merging with the locally scannedGameDBwill be required.- The download planner uses a simple round-robin and does not yet take per-peer throughput or failures into account when distributing work.
Refer to the source (particularly src/lib.rs) for the exact message shapes and
state machines.