Installation

Bifröst is three binaries: bifrostd (the daemon), bifrost (the CLI) and bifrost-tui (the terminal UI).

Install script

curl -fsSL https://samishal1998.github.io/bifrost/install.sh | sh

The same script, served straight from the repository:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/samishal1998/bifrost/main/install.sh | sh

What it does:

1. Picks the release asset for your OS and CPU, bifrost-<target>.tar.gz.
2. Downloads it together with SHA256SUMS and checks the hash with sha256sum or shasum. On a mismatch, or with neither tool present, it stops and installs nothing.
3. Puts bifrost, bifrostd and bifrost-tui into the install directory. Each binary is staged first and then renamed into place, so an upgrade is safe while bifrostd is running. Then it runs bifrost --version.
4. Warns when the install directory is not on your PATH, and lists which runtime tools it found.

It never uses sudo and installs nothing but the three binaries.

Read it first

curl -fsSL https://samishal1998.github.io/bifrost/install.sh -o install.sh, read it, then sh install.sh.

Options

Set these on the sh side of the pipe:

Variable	Default	Effect
BIFROST_VERSION	latest release	A release tag such as v0.1.0 (0.1.0 works too)
BIFROST_INSTALL_DIR	$HOME/.local/bin	Where the three binaries go. It must be writable by you
BIFROST_DOWNLOAD_URL	GitHub Releases	Base URL of a mirror. The script fetches <base>/SHA256SUMS and <base>/bifrost-<target>.tar.gz

# pin a version
curl -fsSL https://samishal1998.github.io/bifrost/install.sh | BIFROST_VERSION=v0.1.0 sh

# install somewhere else
curl -fsSL https://samishal1998.github.io/bifrost/install.sh | BIFROST_INSTALL_DIR="$HOME/bin" sh

Platforms

OS	CPU	Release asset
Linux (static, musl)	x86_64	bifrost-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.tar.gz
Linux (static, musl)	arm64	bifrost-aarch64-unknown-linux-musl.tar.gz
macOS	Intel	bifrost-x86_64-apple-darwin.tar.gz
macOS	Apple silicon	bifrost-aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.gz

Each tarball holds one directory, bifrost-<target>/, with the three binaries, README.md, LICENSE-MIT and LICENSE-APACHE.

macOS is not field-tested

The macOS binaries are built and unit-tested on GitHub’s macOS runners, but mounting on a real Mac has not been exercised yet. Linux is the tested platform. Reports from Mac users are welcome.

Manual download

1. Pick your target from the table above and download the tarball and the checksum list:

   target=x86_64-unknown-linux-musl
   base=https://github.com/samishal1998/bifrost/releases/latest/download
   curl -fsSLO "$base/bifrost-$target.tar.gz"
   curl -fsSLO "$base/SHA256SUMS"

   For a specific version, use https://github.com/samishal1998/bifrost/releases/download/v0.1.0 as the base.

2. Verify the tarball:

   Linux

   grep " bifrost-$target.tar.gz\$" SHA256SUMS | sha256sum -c -

   macOS

   grep " bifrost-$target.tar.gz\$" SHA256SUMS | shasum -a 256 -c -

   It must print bifrost-<target>.tar.gz: OK.

3. Unpack and install:

   tar -xzf "bifrost-$target.tar.gz"
   mkdir -p ~/.local/bin
   install -m 755 "bifrost-$target/bifrost" "bifrost-$target/bifrostd" "bifrost-$target/bifrost-tui" ~/.local/bin/

Build from source

You need Rust 1.89 or newer (edition 2024).

git clone https://github.com/samishal1998/bifrost
cd bifrost
cargo build --release
mkdir -p ~/.local/bin
install -m 755 target/release/bifrost target/release/bifrostd target/release/bifrost-tui ~/.local/bin/

With CARGO_TARGET_DIR set, the binaries are in $CARGO_TARGET_DIR/release/ instead.

Runtime dependencies

Bifröst drives the tools you already trust. It looks for them on $PATH and in /usr/local/bin, /usr/bin and /bin (plus /opt/homebrew/bin on macOS), so a minimal service PATH still works.

• ssh (the OpenSSH client), always. Every driver goes through the system ssh.
• Linux: sshfs and/or rclone, plus FUSE 3 (/dev/fuse and fusermount3, package fuse3).
• macOS: macFUSE or FUSE-T for sshfs and rclone. rclone alone is enough for the rclone-nfs driver.
• tailscale, only if you use the Tailscale discovery provider.

Debian / Ubuntu

sudo apt install openssh-client sshfs fuse3
sudo apt install rclone        # optional second driver

Fedora

sudo dnf install openssh-clients fuse-sshfs fuse3
sudo dnf install rclone        # optional second driver

Arch

sudo pacman -S openssh sshfs fuse3
sudo pacman -S rclone          # optional second driver

macOS

brew install rclone                                   # rclone-nfs needs no FUSE at all
# for sshfs, pick one FUSE:
brew install --cask macfuse && brew install gromgit/fuse/sshfs-mac
brew install macos-fuse-t/cask/fuse-t macos-fuse-t/cask/fuse-t-sshfs

Then check everything in one go:

bifrost doctor

doctor works without a running daemon. See Troubleshooting for what each line means.

Uninstall

Mounts outlive the daemon, so unmount first, then stop bifrostd and remove the binaries:

bifrost unmount <id>                        # for each mount in `bifrost mounts`
systemctl --user disable --now bifrost      # or stop bifrostd however you started it
rm ~/.local/bin/bifrost ~/.local/bin/bifrostd ~/.local/bin/bifrost-tui

Your config (~/.config/bifrost/) and state (~/.local/state/bifrost/) stay until you delete them.