7 GNUnet is peer-to-peer framework focusing on security. The first and
8 primary application for GNUnet is anonymous file-sharing. GNUnet is
9 currently developed by a worldwide group of independent free software
10 developers. GNUnet is a GNU package (http://www.gnu.org/).
12 This is an ALPHA release. There are known and significant bugs as
13 well as many missing features in this release.
15 Additional documentation about GNUnet can be found at
22 Please note that for many of its dependencies GNUnet requires very
23 recent versions of the libraries which are often NOT to be found in
24 stable distributions in 2010. While using older packages may in some
25 cases on some operating systems may seem to work in some limited
26 fashion, we are in many cases aware of serious problems with older
27 packages. Hence please make sure to use the versions listed below.
29 These are the direct dependencies for running GNUnet:
31 - libextractor >= 0.6.1
32 - libmicrohttpd >= 0.9.0
36 - libltdl >= 2.2 (part of GNU libtool)
37 - sqlite >= 3.0 (alternative to MySQL)
38 - mysql >= 5.1 (alternative to sqLite)
39 - postgres >= ??? (not yet supported)
41 Recommended autotools for compiling the SVN version are:
50 The fastest way is to use a binary package if it is available for your
51 system. For a more detailed description, read the installation
52 instructions on the webpage at https://gnunet.org/installation.
54 Note that some functions of GNUnet require "root" access. GNUnet will
55 install (tiny) SUID binaries for those functions is you run "make
56 install" as root. If you do not, GNUnet will still work, but some
57 functionality will not be available (including certain forms of NAT
60 GNUnet requires the GNU MP library (http://www.gnu.org/software/gmp/)
61 and libgcrypt (http://www.gnupg.org/). You can specify the path to
62 libgcrypt by passing "--with-gcrypt=PATH" to configure. You will also
63 need either sqlite (http://www.sqlite.org/) or MySQL
64 (http://www.mysql.org/).
66 If you install from source, you need to install GNU libextractor first
67 (download from http://www.gnu.org/software/libextractor/). We also
68 recommend installing GNU libmicrohttpd (download from
69 http://www.gnu.org/software/libmicrohttpd/). Then you can start the
70 actual GNUnet compilation process with:
72 $ ./configure --prefix=$HOME --with-extractor=$HOME
75 # sudo -u gnunet mkdir ~/.gnunet/
76 # sudo -u gnunet touch ~/.gnunet/gnunet.conf
77 # sudo -u gnunet gnunet-arm -s
79 This will compile and install GNUnet to $HOME/bin/, $HOME/lib/ and
80 $HOME/share/ and start the system with the default configuration. It
81 is recommended that you add a user "gnunet" to run "gnunet-arm". You
82 can then still run the end-user applications as another user. If you
83 create a user "gnunet", it is recommended that you edit the
84 configuration file slightly so that data can be stored in
85 "/var/lib/gnunet"; you may also want to use "/etc/gnunet.conf" for the
86 location of the configuration file in this case.
88 Note that additional, per-user configuration files
89 (~/.gnunet/gnunet.conf) need to be created by each user (for example,
90 by running gnunet-setup). For more general information about the GNU
91 build process read the INSTALL file.
93 If you are compiling the code from subversion, you have to run
94 ". bootstrap" before ./configure. If you receive an error during the
95 running of ". bootstrap" that looks like "macro `AM_PATH_GTK' not
96 found in library", you may need to run aclocal by hand with the -I
97 option, pointing to your aclocal m4 macros, i.e.
99 $ aclocal -I /usr/local/share/aclocal
105 GNUnet uses two types of configuration files, one that specifies the
106 system-wide defaults (typically located in /usr/share/gnunet/defaults
107 .conf) and a second one that overrides default values with
108 user-specific preferences. The user-specific configuration file
109 should be located in "~/.gnunet/gnunet.conf" or its location can be
110 specified by giving the "-c" option to the respective GNUnet
113 The defaults that are shipped with the installation are usually ok,
114 you may want to adjust the limitations (space consumption, bandwidth,
115 etc.) though. The configuration files are human-readable. Note that
116 you MUST create "~/.gnunet/gnunet.conf" explicitly before starting
117 GNUnet. You can either copy "defaults.conf" or simply create an empty
124 First, you must obtain an initial list of GNUnet hosts. Knowing a
125 single peer is sufficient since after that GNUnet propagates
126 information about other peers. Note that the default "gnunet.conf"
127 contains URLs from where GNUnet downloads an initial hostlist
128 whenever it is started. If you want to create an alternative URL for
129 others to use, the file can be generated on any machine running
130 GNUnet by periodically executing
132 $ cat $SERVICEHOME/data/hosts/* > the_file
134 and offering 'the_file' via your web server. Alternatively, you can
135 run the build-in web server by adding '-p' to the OPTIONS value
136 in the "hostlist" section of gnunet.conf and opening the respective
137 HTTPPORT to the public.
139 If the solution with the hostlist URL is not feasible for your
140 situation, you can also add hosts manually. Simply copy the hostkeys
141 to "$SERVICEHOME/data/hosts/" (where $SERVICEHOME is the directory
142 specified in the gnunet.conf configuration file).
144 Now start the local node using "gnunet-arm -s". GNUnet should run 24/7 if
145 you want to maximize your anonymity.
147 The GTK user interface is shipped separately. After downloading and
148 installing gnunet-gtk, you can invoke the GUI with:
152 // FIXME: gnunet-qt is not yet supported in 0.9.x
153 For Qt/KDE users, there is also a QT user interface (also shipped
154 separately). If you install gnunet-qt, you can invoke the GUI with:
158 If you want to use the shell (part of this distribution), use
160 $ gnunet-search KEYWORD
162 This will display a list of results to the console. Then use
164 $ gnunet-download -o FILENAME GNUNET_URI
166 to retrieve a file. The GNUNET_URI is printed by gnunet-search
167 together with a description. To publish files on GNUnet, use the
168 "gnunet-publish" command.
170 // FIXME: auto-share is not yet supported in 0.9.x
171 In order to share files, the easiest way is to create a directory
172 with the files (and directories) that you want to share and run
174 $ nohup gnunet-auto-share NAME-OF-THE-DIRECTORY &
176 For further documentation, see our webpage.
182 Contributions are welcome, please submit bugs to
183 https://gnunet.org/bugs/. Please make sure to run contrib/report.sh
184 and include the output with your bug reports. More about how to
185 report bugs can be found in the GNUnet FAQ on the webpage. Submit
186 patches via E-Mail to gnunet-developers@gnu.org.
188 In order to run the unit tests with "make check", you need to
189 set an environment variable ("GNUNET_PREFIX") to the directory
190 where GNUnet is installed (usually, GNUnet will use OS specific
191 tricks in order to try to figure out the PREFIX, but since the
192 testcase binaries are not installed, that trick does not work
193 for them). Also, before running any testcases, you must
194 complete the installation first. Quick summary:
196 $ ./configure --prefix=$SOMEWHERE
199 $ export GNUNET_PREFIX=$SOMEWHERE
202 If any testcases fail to pass on your system, run "contrib/report.sh"
203 and report the output together with information about the failing
204 testcase to the Mantis bugtracking system at
205 https://gnunet.org/bugs/.
208 Running http on port 80 and https on port 443
209 =============================================
211 In order to hide GNUnet's HTTP/HTTPS traffic perfectly, you might
212 consider running GNUnet's HTTP/HTTPS transport on port 80/443.
213 However, we do not recommend running GNUnet as root. Instead, forward
214 port 80 to say 8080 with this command (as root, in your startup
217 # iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp -m tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 8080
221 # iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp -m tcp --dport 443 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 4433
223 Then set in the HTTP section of gnunet.conf the "ADVERTISED-PORT" to
224 "80" and "PORT" to 8080 and similarly in the HTTPS section the
225 "ADVERTISED-PORT" to "443" and "PORT" to 4433.
227 You can do the same trick for the TCP and UDP transports if you want
228 to map them to a priviledged port (from the point of view of the
229 network). However, we are not aware of this providing any advantages
234 Running the SMTP transport
235 ==========================
237 // NOTE: SMTP is not currently available in this version of GNUnet
238 Running GNUnet over SMTP (e-mail) is a bit more involved. Note that
239 you do not need to run all transports (only running the NAT transport
240 is the only thing that will not work). If you really want to do
241 P2P over SMTP, read the instructions at http://gnunet.org/smtp
247 * https://gnunet.org/
248 * https://gnunet.org/bugs/
249 * https://gnunet.org/svn/
250 * http://www.gnu.org/software/gnunet/
251 * http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnunet-developers
252 * http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-gnunet
253 * http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-gnunet
254 * http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnunet-svn