blobs

README

blobs

blobs is a high-performance, content-addressed blob storage engine for Go. Data is immutable and addressed by SHA-256 hash — identical content is stored once. Metadata lives in a pluggable index; raw data lives in segment files with a WAL for crash recovery.

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Features

• Content addressing — blobs keyed by sha256:<hex>; deduplication is automatic.
• Namespace isolation — logical partitions with optional per-namespace quotas.
• Pluggable index — MemoryBackend for tests, BboltBackend for production (ACID, single-file, crash-safe).
• Segment-based storage — fixed-size pages (default 16 KB), cache-aligned headers, zero-allocation read path.
• Write-Ahead Log (WAL) — fsync'd before return; survive process crash after Put succeeds.
• Crash recovery — RebuildIndex reconstructs chunk locations by scanning segment files.
• Compaction — marks dead chunks in-place (phase 1); segment rewriting reclaims disk (phase 2).
• Data verification — CRC-32 per page + SHA-256 content hash; Verify endpoint checks integrity.
• Security audited — 10 findings (2 critical, 2 high, 4 medium, 2 info) all fixed and regression-tested.

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Index Backends

Backend	Package	Use
MemoryBackend	index.NewMemoryBackend()	Tests only — data lost on restart.
BboltBackend	index/backend.Open(...)	Production — embedded, ACID, single-file, survives restart.

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Opening a Store

import (
    "github.com/asaidimu/blobs/index/backend"
    "github.com/asaidimu/blobs/store"
)

// ── With bbolt (production) ──────────────────────────────────────────
idx, err := backend.Open(backend.Options{Path: "/data/blobs/index.bbolt"})
s, err := store.Open(store.Config{DataDir: "/data/blobs", Index: idx})
defer s.Close()        // also closes the index

// ── With MemoryBackend (tests) ──────────────────────────────────────
s, err := store.Open(store.Config{
    DataDir: t.TempDir(),
    Index:   index.NewMemoryBackend(),
})

Config fields:

Field	Default	Description
DataDir	required	Root for segment/WAL files. One subdirectory per namespace.
Index	required	Pluggable Backend — see table above.
PageSize	16384	Size of each page in segment files.
ChunkSize	4 MB	Target chunk size before splitting.
MaxSegmentSize	512 MB	Max size before rolling to a new segment file.

A "default" namespace is created automatically on first open.

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Namespaces

// Create a new namespace with a quota.
s.CreateNamespace(ctx, object.Namespace{
    ID:          "my-app",
    DisplayName: "My Application",
    Quota:       &object.Quota{MaxBytes: 1 << 30},
})

// List all namespaces.
nsList, _ := s.ListNamespaces(ctx)

// Get a scoped handle (cheap — no I/O).
ns := s.Namespace("my-app")

// Delete a namespace and all its refs (default cannot be deleted).
s.DeleteNamespace(ctx, "my-app")

Namespace IDs must match ^[a-z0-9][a-z0-9\-]{0,61}[a-z0-9]$ (2–63 chars, lowercase alphanumeric plus hyphens). "default" is reserved.

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CRUD

Put — write a blob

info, err := ns.Put(ctx, "photos/vacation.jpg", file, store.PutOptions{
    ContentType: "image/jpeg",
    Custom:      map[string]string{"album": "2026"},
})
// info.Key, info.Metadata.BlobID, info.Metadata.Size, info.Metadata.ContentType ...

Put streams the reader through SHA-256, splits into chunks, writes them to a segment with CRC-32, fsyncs, appends the WAL, then atomically commits ref + blob manifest + chunk locations + stats to the index.

If the key already exists, the old ref is replaced and the previous blob becomes GC-eligible (ref-counted). Duplicate content is automatically deduplicated.

Get — read a blob

rc, err := ns.Get(ctx, "photos/vacation.jpg")
defer rc.Close()
data, err := io.ReadAll(rc)

Returns a streaming reader that reassembles chunks on-the-fly. Returns *errors.NotFoundError if the key doesn't exist.

Head — get metadata without reading data

info, err := ns.Head(ctx, "photos/vacation.jpg")
// info.Metadata.Size, info.Metadata.BlobID, info.Metadata.CreatedAt ...

Delete — remove a ref

err := ns.Delete(ctx, "photos/vacation.jpg")    // idempotent — returns nil if missing

Removes the ref entry. The underlying blob's ref count is decremented; chunks are not reclaimed until Compact runs.

List — enumerate keys

// All keys
items, _ := ns.List(ctx, store.ListOptions{})

// Prefix filter
items, _ := ns.List(ctx, store.ListOptions{KeyPrefix: "photos/"})

// Pagination (lexicographic)
items, _ := ns.List(ctx, store.ListOptions{After: "photos/vacation.jpg", Limit: 50})

Returns []object.BlobInfo in lexicographic order.

---

Stats

// Per-namespace
s, _ := ns.Stats(ctx)
// s.BlobCount, s.BytesStored, s.BytesPhysical, s.ChunkCount,
// s.DeadBytes, s.SegmentCount, s.UpdatedAt

// Aggregate across all namespaces
global, _ := store.Stats(ctx)
// global.TotalBlobCount, global.TotalBytesStored, global.TotalBytesPhysical,
// global.DeduplicationRatio, global.PerNamespace

---

Maintenance

Verify — check data integrity

err := ns.Verify(ctx)
// Returns first *errors.CorruptionError found, or nil.

Reads every chunk for every blob in the namespace and verifies its CRC-32. Expensive — run offline.

RebuildIndex — reconstruct chunk index from segment files

err := ns.RebuildIndex(ctx)

Scans all segment files on disk and repopulates chunk entries in the index. Does not reconstruct refs (those come from the WAL or a backup). Call after Open when the dirty flag indicates an unclean shutdown.

Compact — reclaim dead space (phase 1)

result, err := ns.Compact(ctx)
// result.BlobsRemoved, result.ChunksRemoved, result.BytesFreed

Walks all blobs with RefCount == 0, marks their page headers as deleted in the segment files, and removes blob/chunk entries from the index. Phase 2 (segment rewriting to reclaim disk space) is not yet implemented.

---

Error Handling

All public API errors are typed in the errors package:

import bserrors "github.com/asaidimu/blobs/errors"

var target *bserrors.NotFoundError
if errors.As(err, &target) {
    fmt.Println("not found:", target.NamespaceID, target.Key)
}

Type	When
*NotFoundError	Key or namespace doesn't exist.
*AlreadyExistsError	Creating a namespace that already exists.
*QuotaExceededError	Put would exceed namespace limits.
*CorruptionError	CRC-32 mismatch — data corruption on disk.
*InvalidKeyError	Empty or malformed key.
*InvalidNamespaceIDError	Namespace ID fails validation.
*ClosedError	Operation on a closed Store.

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Full Example

See examples/basic/main.go for a walkthrough that writes a blob, reads it back, lists keys, checks stats, closes the store, and reopens it to prove data survives a restart.

import (
    "github.com/asaidimu/blobs/index/backend"
    "github.com/asaidimu/blobs/store"
)

idx, _ := backend.Open(backend.Options{Path: "index.bbolt"})
s, _     := store.Open(store.Config{DataDir: "data", Index: idx})
defer s.Close()

ns := s.Namespace("default")
ns.Put(ctx, "key", reader, store.PutOptions{})
rc, _      := ns.Get(ctx, "key")
items, _   := ns.List(ctx, store.ListOptions{})
stats, _   := ns.Stats(ctx)
ns.Delete(ctx, "key")

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Benchmarks

Intel Xeon @ 2.80 GHz, Linux/amd64:

Operation	Throughput
WriteBlob (4 MB)	101 MB/s
ReadChunk (4 MB)	3,813 MB/s
ReadChunk concurrent (64 KB)	3,190 MB/s

Write throughput is fsync-bound; expect 400–800 MB/s on NVMe with battery-backed write cache.

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Development

make build      # go build -v ./...
make test       # go clean -testcache && go test -v ./...
go test -race ./...

All 57 tests pass with no race conditions.

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License

MIT — see LICENSE.md.