7 GNUnet is peer-to-peer framework providing a network abstractions and
8 applications focusing on security and privacy. So far, we have
9 created applications for anonymous file-sharing, decentralized naming
10 and identity management, decentralized and confidential telephony and
11 tunneling IP traffic over GNUnet. GNUnet is currently developed by a
12 worldwide group of independent free software developers. GNUnet is a
13 GNU package (http://www.gnu.org/).
15 This is an ALPHA release. There are known and significant bugs as
16 well as many missing features in this release.
18 GNUnet is free software released under the GNU Affero General Public
19 License (v3 or later). For details see the COPYING file in this
20 directory. If you fork this software, you MUST adjust GNUNET_AGPL_URL
21 in src/include/gnunet_util_lib.h to point to the source code of your
24 Additional documentation about GNUnet can be found at
25 https://gnunet.org/ and in the 'doc/' folder.
26 Online documentation is provided at
27 'https://docs.gnunet.org' and 'https://tutorial.gnunet.org'.
33 These are the direct dependencies for running GNUnet:
35 - libmicrohttpd >= 0.9.42
37 - libgnurl >= 7.35.0 (recommended, available from https://gnunet.org/en/libgnurl.html)
38 - libcurl >= 7.35.0 (alternative to libgnurl)
39 - libunistring >= 0.9.2
40 - gnutls >= 3.2.12 (highly recommended a gnutls linked against libunbound)
45 - libextractor >= 0.6.1 (highly recommended)
46 - openssl >= 1.0 (binary, used to generate X.509 certificate
47 for gnunet-gns-proxy-setup-ca)
48 - nss (certutil binary, for
49 gnunet-gns-proxy-setup-ca)
50 - libltdl >= 2.2 (part of GNU libtool)
51 - sqlite >= 3.8 (default database, required)
52 - mysql >= 5.1 (alternative to sqlite)
53 - postgres >= 9.5 (alternative to sqlite)
56 - which (bootstrap script and some Makefiles)
62 These are the dependencies for GNUnet's testsuite:
64 - Bash (optional (?), for some tests)
65 - python >= 3.7 (optional, only python 3.7 is supported)
66 - python-future >= 3.7 (optional, only python 3.7 is supported)
69 These are the optional dependencies:
71 - libopus >= 1.0.1 (optional, for experimental conversation tool)
72 - libpulse >= 2.0 (optional, for experimental conversation tool)
73 - libogg >= 1.3.0 (optional, for experimental conversation tool)
74 - libnss (optional, certtool binary (for convenient installation of GNS proxy))
75 - python2.7-future (optional, for gnunet-qr)
76 - python-zbar >= 0.10 (optional, for gnunet-qr)
77 - TeX Live >= 2012 (optional, for gnunet-bcd[*])
78 - texi2mdoc (optional, for automatic mdoc generation [*2])
79 - libglpk >= 4.45 (optional, for experimental code)
80 - perl5 (optional, for some utilities)
81 - guile 1.6.4 (or later up to 1.8?, optional for gnunet-download-manager)
82 - python2.7 >= 2.7 (optional, for gnunet-qr, only python 2.7 is supported)
83 - bluez (optional, for bluetooth support)
85 - libpbc >= 0.5.14 (optional, for Attribute-Based Encryption and Identity Provider functionality)
86 - libgabe (optional, for Attribute-Based Encryption and Identity Provider functionality,
87 from https://github.com/schanzen/libgabe)
89 Recommended autotools for compiling the Git version are:
96 [*] Mandatory for compiling the info output of the documentation,
97 a limited subset ('texlive-tiny' in Guix) is enough.
99 [*1] The default configuration is to build the info output of the
100 documentation, and therefore require texinfo. You can pass
101 '--disable-documentation' to the configure script to change this.
103 [*2] If you still prefer to have documentation, you can pass
104 '--with-section7' to build mdoc documentation (experimental
105 stages in gnunet). If this proves to be reliable, we will
106 include the mdoc output in the release tarballs.
107 Contrary to the name, texi2mdoc does not require texinfo,
108 It is a standalone ISO C utility.
113 GNUnet's directed acyclic graph (DAG) will require around 0.74 GiB
114 Diskspace, with GNUNet itself taking around 9.2 MiB reported by the
124 We recommend to use binary packages provided by your Operating System's
125 package manager. GNUnet is reportedly available for at least:
127 GNU Guix, Nix, Debian, ALT Linux, Archlinux, Deepin, Devuan, Hyperbola,
128 Kali Linux, LEDE/OpenWRT, Manjaro, Parabola, Pardus, Parrot, PureOS,
129 Raspbian, Rosa, Trisquel, and Ubuntu.
131 If GNUnet is available for your Operating System and it is missing,
132 send us feedback so that we can add it to this list. Furthermore, if
133 you are interested in packaging GNUnet for your Operating System,
134 get in touch with us at gnunet-developers@gnu.org if you require
137 If you were using an Operating System with the apt package manager,
138 GNUnet could be installed as simple as:
140 $ apt-get install gnunet
142 Generic installation instructions are in the INSTALL file in this
145 Scope of Operating System support
146 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
147 We actively support GNUnet on a broad range of Free Software Operating
150 For proprietary Operating Systems, like for example Microsoft Windows
151 or Apple OS X, we accept patches if they don't break anything for
152 other Operating Systems.
153 If you are implementing support for a proprietary Operating System,
154 you should be aware that progress in our codebase could break
155 functionality on your OS and cause unpredicted behavior we can
156 not test. However, we do not break support on Operating Systems
157 with malicious intent.
158 Regressions which do occur on these Operating Systems are 3rd
159 class issues and we expect users and developers of these
160 Operating Systems to send proposed patches to fix regressions.
162 For more information about our stand on some of the motivating
163 points here, read the 'Philosophy' Chapter of our handbook.
165 Building GNUnet from source
166 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
168 IMPORTANT: You can read further notes about compilation from source in
169 the handbook under doc/handbook/, which includes notes about specific
170 requirements for operating systems aswell. If you are a package
171 mantainer for an Operating System we invite you to add your notes if
172 you feel it is necessary and can not be covered in your Operating
173 System's documentation.
175 Two prominent examples which currently lack cross-compilation
176 support in GNUnet (and native binaries) are MS Windows and Apple macOS.
177 For macOS we recommend you to do the build process via Homebrew and a
178 recent XCode installation. We don't recommend using GNUnet with any
179 recent MS Windows system as it officially spies on its users (according
180 to its T&C), defying some of the purposes of GNUnet.
182 Note that some functions of GNUnet require "root" access. GNUnet will
183 install (tiny) SUID binaries for those functions is you run "make
184 install" as root. If you do not, GNUnet will still work, but some
185 functionality will not be available (including certain forms of NAT
188 GNUnet requires the GNU MP library (https://www.gnu.org/software/gmp/)
189 and libgcrypt (https://www.gnupg.org/). You can specify the path to
190 libgcrypt by passing "--with-gcrypt=PATH" to configure. You will also
191 need either sqlite (http://www.sqlite.org/), MySQL
192 (http://www.mysql.org/) or PostGres (http://www.postgres.org/).
194 If you install from source, you need to install GNU libextractor first
195 (download from https://www.gnu.org/software/libextractor/). We also
196 recommend installing GNU libmicrohttpd (download from
197 https://www.gnu.org/software/libmicrohttpd/). Furthermore we recommend
198 libgnurl (from https://gnunet.org/en/libgnurl.html).
199 Then you can start the actual GNUnet compilation process with:
202 $ export GNUNET_PREFIX=/usr/local/lib # or other directory of your choice
204 # adduser --system --home "/var/lib/gnunet" --group gnunet --shell /bin/sh
205 # ./configure --prefix=$GNUNET_PREFIX/.. --with-extractor=$LE_PREFIX
208 And finally install GNUnet with:
212 Complete the process by either adjusting one of our example service files
213 in 'contrib/services' or by running:
215 # sudo -u gnunet gnunet-arm -s
218 Note that running the 'configure' and 'make install' steps as
219 root (or with sudo) is required as some parts of the installation
220 require the creation of SUID binaries. The installation will
221 work if you do not run these steps as root, but some components
222 may not be installed in the perfect place or with the right
223 permissions and thus won't work.
225 This will create the users and groups needed for running GNUnet
226 securely and then compile and install GNUnet to $GNUNET_PREFIX/../bin/,
227 $GNUNET_PREFIX/ and $GNUNET_PREFIX/../share/ and start the system
228 with the default configuration. It is strongly recommended that you
229 add a user "gnunet" to run "gnunet-arm". You can then still run the
230 end-user applications as another user.
232 If you create a system user "gnunet", it is recommended that you edit
233 the configuration file slightly so that data can be stored in the
234 system user home directory at "/var/lib/gnunet". Depending on what
235 the $HOME-directory of your "gnunet" user is, you might need to set
236 the SERVICEHOME option in section "[PATHS]" to "/var/lib/gnunet" to
237 do this. Depending on your personal preferences, you may also want to
238 use "/etc/gnunet.conf" for the location of the configuration file in
239 this case (instead of ~gnunet/.config/gnunet.conf"). In this case,
240 you need to start GNUnet using "gnunet-arm -s -c /etc/gnunet.conf" or
241 set "XDG_CONFIG_HOME=/etc/".
243 You can avoid running 'make install' as root if you run configure
244 with the "--with-sudo=yes" option and have extensive sudo rights
245 (can run "chmod +s" and "chown" via 'sudo'). If you run 'make install'
246 as a normal user without sudo rights (or the configure option),
247 certain binaries that require additional priviledges will not be
248 installed properly (and autonomous NAT traversal, WLAN, DNS/GNS and
249 the VPN will then not work).
251 If you run 'configure' and 'make install' as root or use the '--with-sudo'
252 option, GNUnet's build system will install "libnss_gns*" libraries to
253 "/lib/" regardless (!) of the $GNUNET_PREFIX you might have specified,
254 as those libraries must be in "/lib/". If you are packaging GNUnet
255 for binary distribution, this may cause your packaging script to miss
256 those plugins, so you might need to do some additional manual work to
257 include those libraries in your binary package(s). Similarly, if you
258 want to use the GNUnet naming system and did NOT run GNUnet's 'make
259 install' process with sudo rights, the libraries will be installed to
260 "$GNUNET_PREFIX" and you will have to move them to "/lib/"
263 Finally, if you are compiling the code from git, you have to
264 run "sh ./bootstrap" before running "./configure". If you receive an error during
265 the running of "sh ./bootstrap" that looks like "macro `AM_PATH_GTK'
266 not found in library", you may need to run aclocal by hand with the -I
267 option, pointing to your aclocal m4 macros, i.e.
269 $ aclocal -I /usr/local/share/aclocal
275 Note that additional, per-user configuration files can be created by
276 each user. However, this is usually not necessary as there are few
277 per-user options that normal users would want to modify. The defaults
278 that are shipped with the installation are usually just fine.
280 The gnunet-setup tool is particularly useful to generate the master
281 configuration for the peer. gnunet-setup can be used to configure and
282 test (!) the network settings, choose which applications should be run
283 and configure databases. Other options you might want to control
284 include system limitations (such as disk space consumption, bandwidth,
285 etc). The resulting configuration files are human-readable and can
286 theoretically be created or edited by hand.
288 gnunet-setup is a separate download and requires somewhat recent
289 versions of GTK+ and Glade. You can also create the configuration file
290 by hand, but this is not recommended. For more general information
291 about the GNU build process read the INSTALL file.
293 GNUnet uses two types of configuration files, one that specifies the
294 system-wide defaults (typically located in
295 $GNUNET_PREFIX/../share/gnunet/config.d/) and a second one that overrides
296 default values with user-specific preferences. The user-specific
297 configuration file should be located in "~/.config/gnunet.conf" or its
298 location can be specified by giving the "-c" option to the respective
301 For more information about the configuration (as well as usage) refer
302 to the 'GNUnet User Handbook' chapter of the documentation, included
303 in this software distribution.
309 For detailed usage notes, instructions and examples, refer to the
310 included 'GNUnet Handbook'.
312 First, you must obtain an initial list of GNUnet hosts. Knowing a
313 single peer is sufficient since after that GNUnet propagates
314 information about other peers. Note that the default configuration
315 contains URLs from where GNUnet downloads an initial hostlist
316 whenever it is started. If you want to create an alternative URL for
317 others to use, the file can be generated on any machine running
318 GNUnet by periodically executing
320 $ cat $SERVICEHOME/data/hosts/* > the_file
322 and offering 'the_file' via your web server. Alternatively, you can
323 run the build-in web server by adding '-p' to the OPTIONS value
324 in the "hostlist" section of gnunet.conf and opening the respective
325 HTTPPORT to the public.
327 If the solution with the hostlist URL is not feasible for your
328 situation, you can also add hosts manually. Simply copy the hostkeys
329 to "$SERVICEHOME/data/hosts/" (where $SERVICEHOME is the directory
330 specified in the gnunet.conf configuration file). You can also use
331 "gnunet-peerinfo -g" to GET a URI for a peer and "gnunet-peerinfo -p
332 URI" to add a URI from another peer. Finally, GNUnet peers that use
333 UDP or WLAN will discover each other automatically (if they are in the
334 vicinity of each other) using broadcasts (IPv4/WLAN) or multicasts
337 The local node is started using "gnunet-arm -s". We recommend to run
338 GNUnet 24/7 if you want to maximize your anonymity, as this makes
339 partitioning attacks harder.
341 Once your peer is running, you should then be able to access GNUnet
344 $ gnunet-search KEYWORD
346 This will display a list of results to the console. You can abort
347 the command using "CTRL-C". Then use
349 $ gnunet-download -o FILENAME GNUNET_URI
351 to retrieve a file. The GNUNET_URI is printed by gnunet-search
352 together with a description. To publish files on GNUnet, use the
353 "gnunet-publish" command.
356 The GTK+ (or: Gimp Toolkit) user interface is shipped separately.
357 After installing gnunet-gtk, you can invoke the setup tool and
358 the file-sharing GUI with:
363 For further documentation, see our webpage or the 'GNUnet User Handbook',
364 included in this software distribution.
370 Contributions are welcome. Please submit bugs you find to
371 https://bugs.gnunet.org/ or our bugs mailinglist.
372 Please make sure to run the script "contrib/scripts/gnunet-bugreport"
373 and include the output with your bug reports. More about how to
374 report bugs can be found in the GNUnet FAQ on the webpage. Submit
375 patches via E-Mail to gnunet-developers@gnu.org, formated with
378 In order to run the unit tests by hand (instead of using "make check"),
379 you need to set the environment variable "GNUNET_PREFIX" to the
380 directory where GNUnet's libraries are installed.
381 Before running any testcases, you must complete the installation.
385 $ ./configure --prefix=$SOMEWHERE
388 $ export $GNUNET_PREFIX=$SOMEWHERE
391 Some of the testcases require python >= 3.7, and the python modules
392 "python-future" (http://python-future.org/) and "pexpect" to be installed.
393 If any testcases fail to pass on your system, run
394 "contrib/scripts/gnunet-bugreport" (in the repository) or "gnunet-bugreport"
395 when you already have GNUnet installed and report its output together with
396 information about the failing testcase(s) to the Mantis bugtracking
397 system at https://gnunet.org/bugs/.
400 Running HTTP on port 80 and HTTPS on port 443
401 =============================================
403 In order to hide GNUnet's HTTP/HTTPS traffic perfectly, you might
404 consider running GNUnet's HTTP/HTTPS transport on port 80/443.
405 However, we do not recommend running GNUnet as root. Instead, forward
406 port 80 to say 1080 with this command (as root, in your startup
409 # iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp -m tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 1080
413 # iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp -m tcp --dport 443 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 4433
415 Then set in the HTTP section of gnunet.conf the "ADVERTISED_PORT" to
416 "80" and "PORT" to 1080 and similarly in the HTTPS section the
417 "ADVERTISED_PORT" to "443" and "PORT" to 4433.
419 You can do the same trick for the TCP and UDP transports if you want
420 to map them to a priviledged port (from the point of view of the
421 network). However, we are not aware of this providing any advantages
424 If you are already running an HTTP or HTTPS server on port 80 (or 443),
425 you may be able to configure it as a "ReverseProxy". Here, you tell
426 GNUnet that the externally visible URI is some sub-page on your website,
427 and GNUnet can then tunnel its traffic via your existing HTTP server.
428 This is particularly powerful if your existing server uses HTTPS, as
429 it makes it harder for an adversary to distinguish normal traffic to
430 your server from GNUnet traffic. Finally, even if you just use HTTP,
431 you might benefit (!) from ISP's traffic shaping as opposed to being
432 throttled by ISPs that dislike P2P. Details for configuring the
433 reverse proxy are documented on our website.
441 A HTML version of the new GNUnet manual is deployed at
443 https://docs.gnunet.org
445 which currently displays just GNUnet documentation. Until 2019
446 we will add more reading material.
450 In almost 20 years various people in our community have written and
451 collected a good number of papers which have been implemented in
452 GNUnet or projects around GNUnet.
453 There are currently 2 ways to get them:
456 git clone https://git.gnunet.org/bibliography.git
458 https://old.gnunet.org/bibliography
460 The Drupal access will be replaced by a new interface to our
461 bibliography in 2019.
467 * https://gnunet.org/
468 * https://bugs.gnunet.org
469 * https://git.gnunet.org
470 * http://www.gnu.org/software/gnunet/
471 * http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnunet-developers
472 * http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-gnunet
473 * http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-gnunet
474 * http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnunet-svn