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.
31 These are the direct dependencies for running GNUnet:
33 - libmicrohttpd >= 0.9.42
35 - libgnurl >= 7.35.0 (recommended, available from https://gnunet.org/gnurl)
36 - libcurl >= 7.35.0 (alternative to libgnurl)
37 - libunistring >= 0.9.2
38 - gnutls >= 3.2.12 (highly recommended a gnutls linked against libunbound)
43 - libextractor >= 0.6.1 (highly recommended)
44 - openssl >= 1.0 (binary, used to generate X.509 certificate)
45 - libltdl >= 2.2 (part of GNU libtool)
46 - sqlite >= 3.8 (default database, required)
47 - mysql >= 5.1 (alternative to sqlite)
48 - postgres >= 9.5 (alternative to sqlite)
50 - makeinfo >= 4.8 (at least 4.8 at the time of writing is tested)
51 - which (for the bootstrap script)
57 These are the dependencies for GNUnet's testsuite:
59 - Bash (optional (?), for some tests)
60 - python >= 3.7 (optional, only python 3.7 is supported)
61 - python-future >= 3.7 (optional, only python 3.7 is supported)
64 These are the optional dependencies:
66 - libopus >= 1.0.1 (optional, for experimental conversation tool)
67 - libpulse >= 2.0 (optional, for experimental conversation tool)
68 - libogg >= 1.3.0 (optional, for experimental conversation tool)
69 - libnss (optional, certtool binary (for convenient installation of GNS proxy))
70 - python2.7-future (optional, for gnunet-qr)
71 - python-zbar >= 0.10 (optional, for gnunet-qr)
72 - TeX Live >= 2012 (optional, for gnunet-bcd[*])
73 - texi2mdoc (optional, for automatic mdoc generation [*2])
74 - libglpk >= 4.45 (optional, for experimental code)
75 - perl5 (optional, for some utilities)
76 - python2.7 >= 2.7 (optional, for gnunet-qr, only python 2.7 is supported)
77 - bluez (optional, for bluetooth support)
79 - libpbc >= 0.5.14 (optional, for Attribute-Based Encryption and Identity Provider functionality)
80 - libgabe (optional, for Attribute-Based Encryption and Identity Provider functionality,
81 from https://github.com/schanzen/libgabe)
83 Recommended autotools for compiling the Git version are:
90 [*] Mandatory for compiling the info output of the documentation,
91 a limited subset ('texlive-tiny' in Guix) is enough.
93 [*1] The default configuration is to build the info output of the
94 documentation, and therefore require texinfo. You can pass
95 '--disable-documentation' to the configure script to change this.
97 [*2] If you still prefer to have documentation, you can pass
98 '--with-section7' to build mdoc documentation (experimental
99 stages in gnunet). If this proves to be reliable, we will
100 include the mdoc output in the release tarballs.
101 Contrary to the name, texi2mdoc does not require texinfo,
102 It is a standalone ISO C utility.
107 GNUnet's directed acyclic graph (DAG) will require around 0.74 GiB
108 Diskspace, with GNUNet itself taking around 9.2 MiB reported by the
118 We recommend to use binary packages provided by your Operating System's
119 package manager. GNUnet is reportedly available for at least:
121 GNU Guix, Nix, Debian, ALT Linux, Archlinux, Deepin, Devuan, Hyperbola,
122 Kali Linux, LEDE/OpenWRT, Manjaro, Parabola, Pardus, Parrot, PureOS,
123 Raspbian, Rosa, Trisquel, and Ubuntu.
125 If GNUnet is available for your Operating System and it is missing,
126 send us feedback so that we can add it to this list. Furthermore, if
127 you are interested in packaging GNUnet for your Operating System,
128 get in touch with us at gnunet-developers@gnu.org if you require
131 If you were using an Operating System with the apt package manager,
132 GNUnet could be installed as simple as:
134 $ apt-get install gnunet
136 Generic installation instructions are in the INSTALL file in this
139 Scope of Operating System support
140 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
141 We actively support GNUnet on a broad range of Free Software Operating
144 For proprietary Operating Systems, like for example Microsoft Windows
145 or Apple OS X, we accept patches if they don't break anything for
146 other Operating Systems.
147 If you are implementing support for a proprietary Operating System,
148 you should be aware that progress in our codebase could break
149 functionality on your OS and cause unpredicted behavior we can
150 not test. However, we do not break support on Operating Systems
151 with malicious intent.
152 Regressions which do occur on these Operating Systems are 3rd
153 class issues and we expect users and developers of these
154 Operating Systems to send proposed patches to fix regressions.
156 For more information about our stand on some of the motivating
157 points here, read the 'Philosophy' Chapter of our handbook.
159 Building GNUnet from source
160 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
162 IMPORTANT: You can read further notes about compilation from source in
163 the 'doc/FILENAME' document, which includes notes about specific
164 requirements for operating systems aswell. If you are a package
165 mantainer for an Operating System we invite you to add your notes if
166 you feel it is necessary and can not be covered in your Operating
167 System's documentation.
169 If you are building GNUnet from source you are either interested
170 in furthering its development (we have further notes for developer
171 builds in our 'GNUnet Developer Handbook') or you don't trust other
172 people's binaries or your Operating System doesn't provide any
173 binary package (at the moment).
175 If you're on Gentoo you can build GNUnet using the recipes provided
176 in the 'youbroketheinternet' overlay. Other Operating Systems may
177 unintentionally require you to build GNUnet from source.
179 Two prominent examples which currently lack cross-compilation
180 support in GNUnet (and native binaries) are MS Windows and Apple macOS.
181 For macOS we recommend you to do the build process via Homebrew and a
182 recent XCode installation. We don't recommend using GNUnet with any
183 recent MS Windows system as it officially spies on its users (according
184 to its T&C), defying some of the purposes of GNUnet.
186 Note that some functions of GNUnet require "root" access. GNUnet will
187 install (tiny) SUID binaries for those functions is you run "make
188 install" as root. If you do not, GNUnet will still work, but some
189 functionality will not be available (including certain forms of NAT
192 GNUnet requires the GNU MP library (https://www.gnu.org/software/gmp/)
193 and libgcrypt (https://www.gnupg.org/). You can specify the path to
194 libgcrypt by passing "--with-gcrypt=PATH" to configure. You will also
195 need either sqlite (http://www.sqlite.org/), MySQL
196 (http://www.mysql.org/) or PostGres (http://www.postgres.org/).
198 If you install from source, you need to install GNU libextractor first
199 (download from https://www.gnu.org/software/libextractor/). We also
200 recommend installing GNU libmicrohttpd (download from
201 https://www.gnu.org/software/libmicrohttpd/). Furthermore we recommend
202 libgnurl (from https://gnunet.org/gnurl).
203 Then you can start the actual GNUnet compilation process with:
206 $ export GNUNET_PREFIX=/usr/local/lib # or other directory of your choice
208 # adduser --system --home "/var/lib/gnunet" --group gnunet --shell /bin/sh
209 # ./configure --prefix=$GNUNET_PREFIX/.. --with-extractor=$LE_PREFIX
212 And finally install GNUnet with:
216 Complete the process by either adjusting one of our example service files
217 in 'contrib/services' or by running:
219 # sudo -u gnunet gnunet-arm -s
222 Note that running the 'configure' and 'make install' steps as
223 root (or with sudo) is required as some parts of the installation
224 require the creation of SUID binaries. The installation will
225 work if you do not run these steps as root, but some components
226 may not be installed in the perfect place or with the right
227 permissions and thus won't work.
229 This will create the users and groups needed for running GNUnet
230 securely and then compile and install GNUnet to $GNUNET_PREFIX/../bin/,
231 $GNUNET_PREFIX/ and $GNUNET_PREFIX/../share/ and start the system
232 with the default configuration. It is strongly recommended that you
233 add a user "gnunet" to run "gnunet-arm". You can then still run the
234 end-user applications as another user.
236 If you create a system user "gnunet", it is recommended that you edit
237 the configuration file slightly so that data can be stored in the
238 system user home directory at "/var/lib/gnunet". Depending on what
239 the $HOME-directory of your "gnunet" user is, you might need to set
240 the SERVICEHOME option in section "[PATHS]" to "/var/lib/gnunet" to
241 do this. Depending on your personal preferences, you may also want to
242 use "/etc/gnunet.conf" for the location of the configuration file in
243 this case (instead of ~gnunet/.config/gnunet.conf"). In this case,
244 you need to start GNUnet using "gnunet-arm -s -c /etc/gnunet.conf" or
245 set "XDG_CONFIG_HOME=/etc/".
247 You can avoid running 'make install' as root if you run configure
248 with the "--with-sudo=yes" option and have extensive sudo rights
249 (can run "chmod +s" and "chown" via 'sudo'). If you run 'make install'
250 as a normal user without sudo rights (or the configure option),
251 certain binaries that require additional priviledges will not be
252 installed properly (and autonomous NAT traversal, WLAN, DNS/GNS and
253 the VPN will then not work).
255 If you run 'configure' and 'make install' as root or use the '--with-sudo'
256 option, GNUnet's build system will install "libnss_gns*" libraries to
257 "/lib/" regardless (!) of the $GNUNET_PREFIX you might have specified,
258 as those libraries must be in "/lib/". If you are packaging GNUnet
259 for binary distribution, this may cause your packaging script to miss
260 those plugins, so you might need to do some additional manual work to
261 include those libraries in your binary package(s). Similarly, if you
262 want to use the GNUnet naming system and did NOT run GNUnet's 'make
263 install' process with sudo rights, the libraries will be installed to
264 "$GNUNET_PREFIX" and you will have to move them to "/lib/"
267 Finally, if you are compiling the code from git, you have to
268 run "sh ./bootstrap" before running "./configure". If you receive an error during
269 the running of "sh ./bootstrap" that looks like "macro `AM_PATH_GTK'
270 not found in library", you may need to run aclocal by hand with the -I
271 option, pointing to your aclocal m4 macros, i.e.
273 $ aclocal -I /usr/local/share/aclocal
279 Note that additional, per-user configuration files can be created by
280 each user. However, this is usually not necessary as there are few
281 per-user options that normal users would want to modify. The defaults
282 that are shipped with the installation are usually just fine.
284 The gnunet-setup tool is particularly useful to generate the master
285 configuration for the peer. gnunet-setup can be used to configure and
286 test (!) the network settings, choose which applications should be run
287 and configure databases. Other options you might want to control
288 include system limitations (such as disk space consumption, bandwidth,
289 etc). The resulting configuration files are human-readable and can
290 theoretically be created or edited by hand.
292 gnunet-setup is a separate download and requires somewhat recent
293 versions of GTK+ and Glade. You can also create the configuration file
294 by hand, but this is not recommended. For more general information
295 about the GNU build process read the INSTALL file.
297 GNUnet uses two types of configuration files, one that specifies the
298 system-wide defaults (typically located in
299 $GNUNET_PREFIX/../share/gnunet/config.d/) and a second one that overrides
300 default values with user-specific preferences. The user-specific
301 configuration file should be located in "~/.config/gnunet.conf" or its
302 location can be specified by giving the "-c" option to the respective
305 For more information about the configuration (as well as usage) refer
306 to the 'GNUnet User Handbook' chapter of the documentation, included
307 in this software distribution.
313 For detailed usage notes, instructions and examples, refer to the
314 included 'GNUnet User Handbook'.
316 First, you must obtain an initial list of GNUnet hosts. Knowing a
317 single peer is sufficient since after that GNUnet propagates
318 information about other peers. Note that the default configuration
319 contains URLs from where GNUnet downloads an initial hostlist
320 whenever it is started. If you want to create an alternative URL for
321 others to use, the file can be generated on any machine running
322 GNUnet by periodically executing
324 $ cat $SERVICEHOME/data/hosts/* > the_file
326 and offering 'the_file' via your web server. Alternatively, you can
327 run the build-in web server by adding '-p' to the OPTIONS value
328 in the "hostlist" section of gnunet.conf and opening the respective
329 HTTPPORT to the public.
331 If the solution with the hostlist URL is not feasible for your
332 situation, you can also add hosts manually. Simply copy the hostkeys
333 to "$SERVICEHOME/data/hosts/" (where $SERVICEHOME is the directory
334 specified in the gnunet.conf configuration file). You can also use
335 "gnunet-peerinfo -g" to GET a URI for a peer and "gnunet-peerinfo -p
336 URI" to add a URI from another peer. Finally, GNUnet peers that use
337 UDP or WLAN will discover each other automatically (if they are in the
338 vicinity of each other) using broadcasts (IPv4/WLAN) or multicasts
341 The local node is started using "gnunet-arm -s". We recommend to run
342 GNUnet 24/7 if you want to maximize your anonymity, as this makes
343 partitioning attacks harder.
345 Once your peer is running, you should then be able to access GNUnet
348 $ gnunet-search KEYWORD
350 This will display a list of results to the console. You can abort
351 the command using "CTRL-C". Then use
353 $ gnunet-download -o FILENAME GNUNET_URI
355 to retrieve a file. The GNUNET_URI is printed by gnunet-search
356 together with a description. To publish files on GNUnet, use the
357 "gnunet-publish" command.
360 The GTK+ (or: Gimp Toolkit) user interface is shipped separately.
361 After installing gnunet-gtk, you can invoke the setup tool and
362 the file-sharing GUI with:
367 For further documentation, see our webpage or the 'GNUnet User Handbook',
368 included in this software distribution.
374 Contributions are welcome. Please submit bugs you find to
375 https://gnunet.org/bugs/.
376 Please make sure to run the script "contrib/scripts/gnunet-bugreport"
377 and include the output with your bug reports. More about how to
378 report bugs can be found in the GNUnet FAQ on the webpage. Submit
379 patches via E-Mail to gnunet-developers@gnu.org, formated with
382 In order to run the unit tests by hand (instead of using "make check"),
383 you need to set the environment variable "GNUNET_PREFIX" to the
384 directory where GNUnet's libraries are installed.
385 Before running any testcases, you must complete the installation.
389 $ ./configure --prefix=$SOMEWHERE
392 $ export $GNUNET_PREFIX=$SOMEWHERE
395 Some of the testcases require python >= 2.7, and the python modules
396 "python-future" (http://python-future.org/) and "pexpect" to be installed.
397 If any testcases fail to pass on your system, run
398 "contrib/scripts/gnunet-bugreport" (in the repository) or "gnunet-bugreport"
399 when you already have GNUnet installed and report its output together with
400 information about the failing testcase(s) to the Mantis bugtracking
401 system at https://gnunet.org/bugs/.
404 Running HTTP on port 80 and HTTPS on port 443
405 =============================================
407 In order to hide GNUnet's HTTP/HTTPS traffic perfectly, you might
408 consider running GNUnet's HTTP/HTTPS transport on port 80/443.
409 However, we do not recommend running GNUnet as root. Instead, forward
410 port 80 to say 1080 with this command (as root, in your startup
413 # iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp -m tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 1080
417 # iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp -m tcp --dport 443 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 4433
419 Then set in the HTTP section of gnunet.conf the "ADVERTISED_PORT" to
420 "80" and "PORT" to 1080 and similarly in the HTTPS section the
421 "ADVERTISED_PORT" to "443" and "PORT" to 4433.
423 You can do the same trick for the TCP and UDP transports if you want
424 to map them to a priviledged port (from the point of view of the
425 network). However, we are not aware of this providing any advantages
428 If you are already running an HTTP or HTTPS server on port 80 (or 443),
429 you may be able to configure it as a "ReverseProxy". Here, you tell
430 GNUnet that the externally visible URI is some sub-page on your website,
431 and GNUnet can then tunnel its traffic via your existing HTTP server.
432 This is particularly powerful if your existing server uses HTTPS, as
433 it makes it harder for an adversary to distinguish normal traffic to
434 your server from GNUnet traffic. Finally, even if you just use HTTP,
435 you might benefit (!) from ISP's traffic shaping as opposed to being
436 throttled by ISPs that dislike P2P. Details for configuring the
437 reverse proxy are documented on our website.
445 A HTML version of the new GNUnet manual is deployed at
447 https://docs.gnunet.org
449 which currently displays just GNUnet documentation. Until 2019
450 we will add more reading material.
454 In almost 20 years various people in our community have written and
455 collected a good number of papers which have been implemented in
456 GNUnet or projects around GNUnet.
457 There are currently 2 ways to get them:
460 git clone https://gnunet.org/git/bibliography.git
462 https://gnunet.org/bibliography
464 The Drupal access will be replaced by a new interface to our
465 bibliography in 2019.
471 * https://gnunet.org/
472 * https://gnunet.org/bugs/
473 * https://gnunet.org/git/
474 * http://www.gnu.org/software/gnunet/
475 * http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnunet-developers
476 * http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-gnunet
477 * http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-gnunet
478 * http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnunet-svn