Glossary
The words on this site, defined.
Short, plain-language definitions of the terms Boita uses, with a link to where each one shows up in the product.
- API key and webhook
- A scoped workspace credential (read, or read and write) that lets scripts, the CLI and the SDKs use the same REST surface as the apps, and a signed HTTPS callback (HMAC-SHA256, retried) that tells your systems the moment a download, portal upload or transfer completes. Pro and above. Developers →
- Archive tier (cold storage)
- A cold, cheaper destination for finished folders: moved with a manifest, verified before anything is removed from hot storage, and restored on demand with the restore time shown. Scale and above; Enterprise adds retention rules per folder. A verifiable variant on decentralised storage is coming on request. Drive →
- Audit log
- A per-workspace record of logins, shares created and opened, downloads, deletions, permission changes and admin actions, shown in the Activity feed. Enterprise workspaces export it as CSV or JSON Lines and stream it to a SIEM. Enterprise controls →
- Checksum
- A short fingerprint computed from a file’s contents. If two copies have the same checksum they are bit-for-bit identical. Boita’s server records a checksum for every file at transfer time and shows it in the file details, so a delivery is verified rather than assumed. Drive →
- Checksum verification
- Comparing a file’s checksum (SHA-256 by default, SHA-512 by policy) recorded at transfer time with the bytes that arrived, so a delivery is checked rather than assumed. Boita records the checksum on the server for every file, shows it in the file details and on the receipt, and marks each completed download as verified. Receipts →
- Data residency
- Where your files physically live. Boita is built and operated in India: files, the transfer server, the application and the database run in Google Cloud, Mumbai, with encrypted backups in Mumbai and Singapore. Regional nodes elsewhere are available on request for Enterprise, as is a self-managed node in your own AWS account. Trust: where data lives →
- Delivery receipt
- A record produced when a recipient finishes downloading: the files, sizes, checksums, timestamp and recipient, as PDF and email, with the integrity check on every completed download. Scale and above; the sender dashboard on every plan shows views and downloads per file and per recipient. Send →
- DLP (data loss prevention) hook
- A call to your own data-loss-prevention service before a share link is created; Boita honours the answer, so your classifier decides what may leave. Enterprise. Enterprise controls →
- Download token
- A short-lived credential minted for one download, scoped to exact paths and direction and expiring in minutes. Because every transfer runs on its own token, revoking a share stops resumed transfers as well as new ones. Security →
- DPDP Act 2023
- India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act. It sets out the duties of a data fiduciary (the customer deciding why data is processed) and a data processor (Boita, processing it on the customer’s instructions), including notice, consent, purpose limitation and deletion. Boita’s alignment work is in progress and reviewed with Indian counsel before launch. Privacy policy →
- Embargo
- An opening time on a share link. Until then the delivery page shows a countdown and serves nothing — no previews, no downloads — and the recipient can add the moment to their calendar. Used for releases, results and anything with a publication time. Share links →
- Encryption in transit and at rest
- In transit: every transfer session is encrypted end to end by the engine, and web, API and share pages are HTTPS only. At rest: files are stored with server-side encryption and a distinct key per workspace, so deleting a workspace can destroy its key. Key handling is being finalised before the pilot. Security →
- Fair use
- Plans are flat and carry no per-GB fees, but lower plans have a monthly transfer allowance so bandwidth cannot be resold. If a workspace is consistently far above it, Boita talks to the customer about the right plan before anything is limited. Pricing FAQ →
- Forensic watermark
- An invisible per-recipient mark in video deliveries that survives re-encoding well enough to be read back from a leaked clip with the "who leaked this?" tool. Enterprise. Enterprise controls →
- Headless agent and CLI
- boita-agent is the Linux service that runs upload and download watch folders on a server, NAS or render node without a window, controlled from the web app. The boita command-line client uploads, downloads, lists, shares, waits for a receipt and tests your line from scripts. Both carry the same engine as the desktop app. Desktop, agent and CLI →
- HTTPS fallback
- The path Boita uses automatically when a network blocks UDP. Slower than the accelerated path but still encrypted; the app shows which path a transfer is on so IT knows what to open.
- Image sequence
- A set of numbered files that belong together: tile_0001.tif to tile_2400.tif, scan_0001.dcm to scan_0512.dcm, shot_010.1001.exr to shot_010.2204.exr. Drive shows such a set as one row with its range, count, size and any gaps; moves, copies and shares treat it as one thing. Drive →
- IP allow-list and device policy
- Network and device restrictions on a workspace: up to 200 addresses or ranges from which members may connect, with a grace window that cannot lock out the person saving it; and a policy that limits member transfers to the desktop app or to approved computers. Recipient and portal traffic is not affected. Enterprise. Enterprise controls →
- Legal hold
- A workspace policy that stops anything in scope from being deleted for good — trash is not emptied, versions are kept, send-mode links do not delete their files — until it is lifted, with the reason recorded. Enterprise can export a hold as a package for counsel. Enterprise controls →
- Line rate
- The full speed of your connection, for example 1 Gbps on a fibre line. A transfer running at line rate is limited by your link, not by the protocol or the distance. Boita is modelled at the line rate in the speed calculator; your plan’s session allowance and the far end are the real ceilings. Speed calculator →
- Low-bandwidth mode
- A remembered switch on delivery, portal and Files pages that turns off previews, covers, thumbnails and animations so the page and the download still work on 2G, 3G or a metered connection. Suggested automatically when the browser reports a slow connection, never forced. India →
- Multi-session (parallel sessions)
- Running one large transfer as several sessions at once, each using the connection fully, so a single job can fill a fatter pipe. Boita sizes the number of sessions to your plan: basic on Free, more on Pro, many on Scale, custom on Enterprise. Plans →
- Object storage (S3-compatible)
- Cloud storage addressed as buckets and objects, most often through the S3 API. Boita connects S3-compatible, Google Cloud Storage and Azure Blob buckets (the last two through their own APIs) on every plan: import a folder on our servers, deliver files into a bucket, or keep a folder and a bucket in step with a sync rule. On Enterprise, auto-delivery also pushes everything that lands in a folder to your own S3-compatible bucket. S3 to on-prem transfer →
- Packet loss
- The share of packets that never arrive, usually a fraction of a percent on a decent route. Even small loss collapses TCP throughput over distance because each loss is treated as congestion. Boita’s engine retransmits only the lost packets and keeps the rate.
- Priority lane (Deadline, Background)
- A per-transfer setting. Deadline makes the workspace’s other running transfers make room on the transfer node until it finishes; Background asks for a third of the session rate and stays out of the way. Enterprise workspaces also get a dedicated bandwidth lane of their own. Desktop, agent and CLI →
- Proxy (review copy)
- A small derived copy of a file rendered on our servers for review: 720p H.264 video, a waveform, a contact sheet, a 2048-pixel image, one page image per PDF page. The player and viewers work from proxies; the original is never served to the browser. Review →
- Resumable transfer
- A transfer that carries on from where it stopped rather than from the beginning. In Boita this is the desktop app: after a dropped connection, sleep, a restart or quitting, an interrupted transfer picks up at the exact byte by itself, and completed files are never re-sent. From a browser or the phone app, an interrupted transfer starts again. Desktop app →
- Review roles (viewer, reviewer, approver)
- What each named recipient of a share link may do: viewers see and download; reviewers comment and request changes; approvers approve or request changes per file, with reminders. Decisions are per version and land on the receipt. Scale and above. Review →
- Round-trip time (RTT)
- The time for a packet to reach the other end and for the reply to come back, typically 200 to 300 milliseconds between India and North America. TCP throughput falls as RTT rises; UDP acceleration does not depend on it.
- SIEM stream
- A signed HTTPS stream of every workspace event to one endpoint of your choosing (the same signature scheme as webhooks), so your security information and event management system sees Boita activity in near real time. Enterprise. Enterprise controls →
- Speed receipt
- The line on every finished transfer that says how big, how long and how fast it was, and how much faster than a typical upload over that route. The comparison is a stated model of TCP (the Mathis model with four streams), never a measurement of another product, and the assumption is printed with it. Insights →
- SSO and SCIM
- Single sign-on: members sign in through your identity provider over OpenID Connect, routed by email domain and optionally enforced. SCIM: the same directory creates, updates and deactivates members and groups in Boita. Enterprise. Enterprise controls →
- Stability wait
- The rule in a watch folder that a file is sent only after it has stopped changing for a set number of seconds. It keeps files still being written or copied from shipping early.
- TCP
- Transmission Control Protocol, the transport under ordinary web uploads and downloads. It is reliable but treats every lost packet as congestion and halves its speed, and it needs one round trip to the far end to notice. Over long, slightly lossy routes this is why a fast office line delivers a small fraction of its capacity.
- Transfer acceleration
- The general term for moving files faster than a plain TCP upload would over the same line: a transport with its own rate control that is not slowed by distance or packet loss, run as parallel sessions, with integrity checks built in. In Boita it is the accelerated transfer engine behind every upload, download, watch folder and agent, and in the desktop app it resumes an interrupted transfer where it stopped. How it works →
- UDP acceleration
- A way of moving files that sends data over UDP with its own rate control instead of relying on TCP. TCP slows down at every lost packet and needs a round trip to recover, so it never fills a long-distance link. A UDP-accelerated transfer measures the path itself, climbs to the line rate once and holds it whatever the distance. Boita’s accelerated transfer engine works this way. How it works →
- Upload portal (request link)
- A link that lets someone outside your workspace upload into a folder you choose, without an account. Each upload lands in its own dated inbox folder on an upload-only token scoped to that folder, and both sides get an email when it completes. Portals →
- Verifiable archive (proof-of-storage)
- An optional cold storage tier, coming and available on request, where aged deliveries are moved out of hot storage to decentralised storage that produces cryptographic proof that the data is still held, and restored on demand with the restore time shown. India-residency workspaces get a domestic object-storage archive instead. The archive is never part of the transfer path. Verifiable archive tier →
- Watch folder
- A local folder the desktop app monitors and mirrors, one way, to a workspace folder. New and changed files upload on their own once they have stopped changing. State is kept locally so a restart does not re-upload the tree. Desktop app →
- Watermark (visible)
- A per-recipient mark rendered into every preview, video and image a recipient sees or downloads from a watermarked link, carrying their name and yours. Copies are rendered once per recipient and removed when the link ends. Scale and above. Docs: watermarks →
- Workspace
- The unit of a Boita account: its own storage root on the transfer server, its own encryption key, members with owner, admin and member roles, seats counted per plan, and its own audit log. Nothing is shared between workspaces.
See the words in action.
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