Upload

How the uploader sends a file

Every member with a confirmed account can upload; signed out, you are asked to log in first. This is what the screen does:

You drop a file on the box or choose one, give it a title if you want a different one, and press Start upload. The browser then cuts the file into four-megabyte pieces and sends them one after another, because the server accepts an eight-megabyte request body and mods run to gigabytes. Each piece is added to a part-file on disk, and the bar follows the bytes that have actually landed, not the bytes that were sent.

That also makes the upload self-correcting: if a piece has to be sent again, the server says how many bytes it already holds and the browser carries on from there. It does not survive leaving the page, though — close the tab mid-upload and it starts again from the first byte.

After it goes up

1. It is stored on the server in Germany, straight away.
2. It is sent to VirusTotal, which runs it past 60+ antivirus engines. A file over VirusTotal’s 650 MB limit cannot be sent there, so it is not published at all until someone checks it by hand. What the scan proves, and where it stops, is written up in full.
3. Until an answer comes back the page stays private. Nothing unchecked is ever public.
4. If an engine flags it, the page stays private and you can see why in your file list.

What the virus check does

The check starts seconds after the upload finishes, and it works in two ways. First the file’s SHA-256 alone is offered to VirusTotal: most mod archives have been seen before, and if this one has, the answer comes back at once and nothing is sent anywhere. Only an unknown file is uploaded for scanning, and its answer is collected a couple of minutes later.

There are four ways it can end, and your file list names each one.

• Clean — nothing flagged. This is the only verdict that publishes a file on its own; your Files page then shows the page address.
• Flagged — the page stays private and nothing is deleted. Your Files page shows how many engines flagged it; if you think they are wrong, say so on the contact page.
• Too large to scan — over the 650 MB VirusTotal accepts, so the file was never sent. It stays private until a person looks at it.
• Could not be checked — the scanner never answered. It is retried, and a check still unanswered after three days is given up on. The file stays private and you are told.

Until one of those arrives the list says Being checked… and the page is not public.

If an upload is never finished

Nothing exists on the site until the last step. The file page is created only when the browser reports the upload complete, and the server refuses that unless the bytes on disk match the size it was promised exactly. A half-finished upload cannot become a half-finished file page.

The piece already on disk is not kept for ever either: a job runs once a day and removes any abandoned part-file older than two days.

What may be uploaded

• Game mods and files that belong to a mod: archives in zip, rar, 7z, scs, jar, pak, mod, tar or gz.
• Work you made, or work you have the author’s permission to share. If you are not sure, do not upload it.
• Nothing that is not a game mod. This is not general file storage.

Uploading for other authors

Uploading is open to every member with a confirmed account. Before you upload, read section 16 of the terms: only game mods, only your own work or a mod whose author allowed it, and no paid mods. Every file is checked with VirusTotal before it is published. The earnings page explains how the advertising money is shared.

If you make mods and want to be told when it opens, say so on the contact page.