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Prerequisites

  • Docker and Docker Compose v2 (docker compose, bundled with Docker Desktop and modern Docker Engine).

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Steps

1

Download the compose file

Terminal
That is the only file you need. There is nothing to clone and no toolchain to install.
2

Start the stack

Terminal
Docker pulls the prebuilt images and starts the client and server containers. Nothing is compiled locally.
3

Open the app

Open http://localhost:3000 in your browser. Pick a file and press Create secure link, then paste that link into a second tab to join as the receiver. Show QR renders the same link as a scannable code, which is how you receive on a phone once the app is reachable from one (see the note below).
A .env file is optional. Every setting has a working default, so the two commands above are genuinely all you need to try it. To change something, fetch the annotated example alongside the compose file:
Terminal

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What this runs

This starts the stack in STUN-only mode. Direct peer-to-peer connections are used, which work on most home and mobile networks. No files pass through the server. To support peers behind strict firewalls, symmetric NAT, or CGNAT, add a TURN relay.
The defaults assume the browser and the server are on the same machine. To reach the app from another device on your network, set both of these in .env to your machine’s LAN IP:
.env
Terminal
Then open the app at http://192.168.1.x:3000 on the sending machine too, not localhost:3000. The share link and its QR code carry whichever address the page was loaded from, so a sender sitting on localhost hands the phone an address that only resolves back to the phone.No rebuild: the client reads its server address at runtime. CLIENT_URL matters as much as the socket URL, because it is the origin the server’s CORS check allows, and without it the browser is blocked even though the page loads.
Ports are configurable. Set CLIENT_PORT and PORT in .env to publish the web app and the signaling server somewhere other than 3000 and 3001. If you change PORT, update NEXT_PUBLIC_SOCKET_URL to match and run docker compose up -d, or the browser will keep looking for the old port. No rebuild is needed; the client reads that address at runtime.

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