Soulseek-rs 🦀

Soulseek-rs is a Soulseek library and client built in Rust. Soulseek is a closed-source P2P file-sharing network from the 2000s. It's still used by music enthusiasts around the world to share niche music.

🎥 Demo

Features

• Search & download — search the network, pick results in the TUI, and queue downloads with pause, resume, and retry
• Sharing — point --shared-dir at a directory and your files show up in searches; peers can browse and download them
• Browse — list any user's shared files and download straight from the tree
• Chat rooms — list, join, and talk in public rooms, several open at once
• Private messages — send and receive messages, with an inbox in the TUI
• Firewalled peers — downloads and browsing fall back to server-brokered connections when a peer can't be reached directly
• Automatic port mapping — opens your listen port via UPnP-IGD and NAT-PMP, with a portmap subcommand to test your router
• TUI and CLI — a full terminal interface, plus scriptable subcommands (search, message, browse, rooms, chat, portmap)

Project Goals

This project is a learning exercise to explore Rust. I've been using Soulseek since the early 2000s, so it's close to my heart, and the Soulseek protocol is a closed-source network protocol that provides a great opportunity to learn about asynchronous and concurrent network programming and reverse engineering

Since it's a learning project, I have a self-imposed restriction not to use external dependencies in the library. This means I can't use any external crates that are not part of the Rust standard library. This is a good challenge to learn how to build complex systems with only the standard library.

In the client crate, external dependencies are allowed for building a rich experience. For me, this is a good balance between learning and practicality.

Planned Features

• Headless mode daemon mode with remote control

Project Structure

This project is organized as a Cargo workspace with two crates:

• soulseek-rs-lib - The core library implementing the Soulseek protocol
• soulseek-rs - A CLI client built on top of the library

This structure allows:

• Other developers to build custom Soulseek clients using soulseek-rs-lib
• Users to install the ready-made client via cargo install soulseek-rs
• Clean separation of concerns between protocol implementation and user interface

Installation

For Users

cargo install soulseek-rs

For Developers

Clone and build from source:

git clone git@github.com:michel/soulseek-rs.git
cd soulseek-rs
cargo build --release

The binary will be available at target/release/soulseek-rs.

For Library Users

To build your own Soulseek client, add to your Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
soulseek-rs-lib = "6"

Usage

./target/release/soulseek-rs "the weeknd Blinding Lights"

Private messages

Send a private message to another user from the command line:

soulseek-rs message <username> "hello there"

In the interactive TUI:

• press m to compose — type <recipient> <message> and Enter to send;
• press i to open the inbox popup listing sent and received messages (incoming messages arrive automatically while the TUI is open). The i shortcut shows an unread counter, e.g. i inbox (3).

Chat rooms

From the command line:

soulseek-rs rooms                       # list public rooms with user counts
soulseek-rs chat <room>                 # join and print messages for a while
soulseek-rs chat <room> "hello room"    # join, say one message, and exit

In the interactive TUI, press c to open the chat-rooms popup:

• the room list is browsable and /-filterable and shows each room's user count (busiest first); press Enter to join the highlighted room;
• several rooms can be open at once as tabs — Tab/Shift-Tab switch between them, x leaves the active room, l returns to the room list;
• in a room, press Enter to type a message and Enter again to send;
• the room's member list is selectable with ↑/↓; press b to browse the highlighted user's shared files or m to send them a private message;
• unread messages bold a room's tab and add a room (n) badge, and the c chat (n) shortcut counts unread across all open rooms.

Connectivity (being reachable)

Browsing and downloading are peer-to-peer, so at least one side must accept an incoming connection. When the listener is enabled (the default), the client automatically tries to open its listen port on your router via UPnP-IGD and NAT-PMP, so firewalled peers and the server can connect back to you. This is best-effort: if your router has UPnP/NAT-PMP disabled it's a no-op and you'll see a log line suggesting you forward the port manually.

• The mapped/forwarded port is your --listener-port (env LISTENER_PORT, default 2234); it is renewed automatically and removed on exit.
• If auto-mapping can't get that exact port, forward TCP 2234 (or whatever --listener-port you chose) to this machine on your router.
• Pass --disable-listener to turn the listener (and port mapping) off.

Check whether it works on your network without launching the whole client:

soulseek-rs portmap

It tries to open the port via UPnP/NAT-PMP and prints whether your router allowed it (and your external address), then removes the test mapping. If it reports failure, enable UPnP on your router or forward the port manually.

If both you and a peer are behind routers with no forwarded port, browsing that peer can't work — that's a fundamental Soulseek/peer-to-peer limitation, not a bug.

Development

To run the project in development mode with debug output and trace output:

RUST_LOG=trace cargo run

To run the tests:

cargo test

To run the linter:

cargo clippy

To run the formatter:

cargo fmt

End-to-end tests

The soulseek-rs-lib/tests/e2e.rs suite exercises the client against a real Soulseek server using soulfind, a local server implementation. The tests are server-optional: they run when a server is available and otherwise skip (so cargo test stays green everywhere).

They locate a server in this order:

1. SOULSEEK_TEST_SERVER=host:port — connect to an already-running server, or
2. SOULFIND_BIN=/path/to/soulfind (or a soulfind/bin/soulfind checkout in a parent directory) — spawn soulfind on an ephemeral port with a throwaway database.

# Build soulfind once (see its BUILDING.md), then:
SOULFIND_BIN=/path/to/soulfind/bin/soulfind \
  cargo test -p soulseek-rs-lib --test e2e -- --nocapture

On macOS, soulfind's SQLITE_CONFIG_SINGLETHREAD optimization is rejected by the system SQLite; building soulfind with that call made non-fatal lets it run locally. It is only a mutex optimization and does not affect the server.

Set SOULSEEK_E2E_REQUIRED=1 to turn a missing server into a hard failure instead of a skip. Continuous integration sets it so the e2e suite genuinely runs against a freshly built soulfind rather than silently skipping.

Continuous integration

.github/workflows/ci.yml runs on every push and pull request:

• Format & Clippy — cargo fmt --all --check and cargo clippy --workspace --all-targets -- -D warnings.
• Test — builds soulfind from source (LDC + dub build :server), points SOULFIND_BIN at it, and runs cargo test --workspace with SOULSEEK_E2E_REQUIRED=1, so unit and end-to-end tests both run.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License — see the LICENSE file for details.