Synxor

Self-hosted file transfer. No accounts. No ads. Your server, your data.

Send files, text snippets, or links between any two devices over the internet. A Sender creates a Room, shares a 6-character Room Code, and the Receiver joins and downloads — Delivery confirmed in real time.

---

Why

Every existing tool either requires an account, caps file size behind a paywall, adds ads, or routes your data through a third-party server you don't control. Synxor runs on your own server. The receiver needs only a browser and a Room Code.

Features

• No account required — anonymous Sender and Receiver, authenticated by a signed Room Token
• Chunked streaming — Receiver can start downloading before upload finishes
• Text Snippets and Links — paste clipboard content or a URL directly into the Room
• Real-time Delivery confirmation — Sender sees when the file arrives
• Short Room Codes — 6-character codes for easy voice or keyboard sharing
• Transfer Log — per-session log of everything sent and received
• Room Expiry — 1 hour, 24 hours, or 7 days
• Dark mode — follows system preference, with manual override
• Self-hostable — single docker compose up, S3-compatible storage swap via env vars

Requirements

• Docker Engine 24+
• Docker Compose v2
• 1 GB RAM minimum
• Ports 80 and 443 available (or configure HTTP_PORT / HTTPS_PORT)

Quick start

git clone https://github.com/izolyte/synxor.git
cd synxor
cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env — set POSTGRES_PASSWORD and MINIO_ROOT_PASSWORD at minimum
sh nginx/certs/generate-dev-cert.sh   # self-signed cert for local HTTPS
docker compose up -d

Open https://localhost — accept the self-signed certificate warning (local dev only) and you'll land on the app: create a Room, share the code, send a file. The API health probe is at https://localhost/health.

Everything is reached through the nginx proxy on ports 80/443; api and web stay internal to the Docker network.

Environment variables

See .env.example for the full list. Key variables:

Variable	Default	Description
HTTP_PORT / HTTPS_PORT	80 / 443	Host ports the nginx proxy publishes
VITE_API_URL	https://localhost	The one canonical public origin (the proxy). Baked into the web bundle at build time — include the port if HTTPS_PORT isn't 443
ALLOWED_ORIGINS	https://localhost	HTTP CORS allowlist; must include the public origin
WS_ALLOWED_ORIGINS	https://localhost	Socket.io CORS allowlist; required in production (the API refuses to default to *)
POSTGRES_PASSWORD	—	Required. PostgreSQL password
POSTGRES_USER	synxor	PostgreSQL user
POSTGRES_DB	synxor	PostgreSQL database name
MINIO_ROOT_USER	minioadmin	MinIO admin username
MINIO_ROOT_PASSWORD	—	Required. MinIO admin password
MAX_FILE_SIZE_BYTES	5368709120	Max file size (default 5 GB)

Stack

Layer	Tech
Frontend	TanStack Start + Tailwind CSS + shadcn/ui
Backend	NestJS 11 + nestjs-trpc + Socket.io
Database	PostgreSQL 17 + Prisma
Storage	MinIO (S3-compatible — swap to AWS S3 or R2 via env vars)
Infra	Docker Compose + Nginx

Deployment

Self-host (root docker-compose.yml) builds the images locally and fronts them with nginx (TLS, HTTP→HTTPS redirect, rate limiting, body cap) — one box, one docker compose up.

CI/CD. Every merge to main builds and pushes synxor-api / synxor-web images to GHCR (.github/workflows/cd.yml). The deploy job that ships them to a host is gated off by default — enable it with:

1. Repo variable DEPLOY_ENABLED=true and VITE_API_URL set to your public origin (baked into the web bundle).
2. Repo secrets DEPLOY_HOST, DEPLOY_USER, DEPLOY_SSH_KEY, DEPLOY_PATH.

On merge it SCPs deploy/docker-compose.prod.yml and nginx/templates/ to the host, pulls the commit's images, brings the stack up with --wait, and fails unless the nginx ingress actually serves.

Production uses the same nginx-fronted topology as dev — nginx terminates TLS on 80/443, api and web stay internal. On the host, next to the compose file:

• nginx/certs/ — real certificates (Let's Encrypt or your CA); point TLS_CERT_PATH / TLS_KEY_PATH at them. The deploy fails fast if this is empty.
• .env — VITE_API_URL here must equal the repo VITE_API_URL variable the web bundle was built with (both are the one public origin, e.g. https://files.example.com); a mismatch breaks the HTTP→HTTPS redirect. Also set ALLOWED_ORIGINS and WS_ALLOWED_ORIGINS to that origin.
• MinIO console — published on loopback only; reach it over an SSH tunnel.

Development

# Prerequisites: Node 24+, pnpm 10+

pnpm install          # install all workspace dependencies
pnpm typecheck        # type-check all packages
pnpm lint             # lint all packages

# Run API locally (requires postgres + minio running)
cd apps/api
pnpm start:dev

Storage swap

Synxor uses MinIO by default. To use AWS S3 or Cloudflare R2, set:

STORAGE_ENDPOINT=https://s3.amazonaws.com   # or your R2 endpoint
STORAGE_ACCESS_KEY=...
STORAGE_SECRET_KEY=...
STORAGE_BUCKET=synxor

No code changes needed.

Releasing

Releases are cut from main with release-it. The version bump and CHANGELOG.md are derived from Conventional Commits (the same format commitlint enforces), so there's nothing to bump by hand — merge PRs with conventional titles and the history does the rest.

export GITHUB_TOKEN=...   # a token with repo scope, for the GitHub Release
pnpm release              # or: pnpm release --dry-run to preview version + changelog

pnpm release picks the next semver from the commits since the last v* tag, regenerates CHANGELOG.md, commits it with the version bump, tags vX.Y.Z, pushes, and opens a GitHub Release with the same notes. Nothing is published to npm. The first release is v0.1.0.

License

UNLICENSED — self-hosted personal use.