Hyperbeam

Reference for the Hyperbeam CLI: create an end-to-end encrypted one-to-one pipe over HyperDHT.

Hyperbeam creates a one-to-one encrypted pipe between two peers. This page documents the public CLI installed by hyperbeam.

System support

Desktop only: macOS, Linux, and Windows are supported. Hyperbeam is not available on Android or iOS.

Install

npm i -g hyperbeam

`hyperbeam`

Create a new encrypted pipe, or connect to an existing one by passphrase.

hyperbeam [passphrase] [options]

Flags:

-r: restart the listening side with an existing passphrase instead of joining as the second peer. Default: off
-h, --help: show help.

Defaults and behavior:

If you omit passphrase, Hyperbeam generates a new passphrase, starts listening, and prints the connect command for the second peer.
If you provide passphrase, Hyperbeam connects to the existing pipe for that passphrase.
If you provide passphrase together with -r, Hyperbeam starts listening again with that same passphrase.
Status messages are written to standard error, while piped data flows through standard input and standard output.

Example:

hyperbeam

Common workflows

Create a fresh pipe and connect from a second terminal

In the first terminal, start a new Hyperbeam session:

hyperbeam

The command prints a generated passphrase. In the second terminal, join that same pipe:

hyperbeam <passphrase>

Anything written to one side is now available on the other.

Pipe standard input and output through the encrypted tunnel

Send data into a new pipe:

echo "hello world" | hyperbeam

Connect from another terminal or machine and read the data:

hyperbeam <passphrase>

Restart the original listening side with the same passphrase

If the announcing side stops and you want to resume it with the same passphrase, start it again with -r:

hyperbeam <passphrase> -r

Use Hyperbeam as a temporary one-to-one transport

Because the CLI uses a single passphrase per connection pair, Hyperbeam is well suited to short-lived point-to-point transfers where one side creates the session and the other joins it with the printed passphrase.