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
38 https://gnunet.org/en/gnurl.html)
39 - libcurl >= 7.35.0 (alternative to libgnurl)
40 - libunistring >= 0.9.2
41 - gnutls >= 3.2.12 (highly recommended a gnutls
42 linked against libunbound)
47 - libextractor >= 0.6.1 (highly recommended)
48 - openssl >= 1.0 (binary, used to generate
50 for gnunet-gns-proxy-setup-ca)
51 - nss (certutil binary, for
52 gnunet-gns-proxy-setup-ca)
53 - libltdl >= 2.2 (part of GNU libtool)
54 - sqlite >= 3.8 (default database, required)
55 - mysql >= 5.1 (alternative to sqlite)
56 - postgres >= 9.5 (alternative to sqlite)
60 - which (contrib/apparmor(?), gnunet-bugreport,
61 tests (dns, gns, namestore,
62 scalarproduct) and possibly more)
65 - Posix shell (for some scripts)
66 - Bash (for some scripts)
68 These are the dependencies for GNUnet's testsuite:
70 - Posix Shell (for some tests)
71 - Bash (for some tests[*4])
72 - python >= 3.7 (only python 3.7 is supported)
73 - python-future >= 3.7 (only python 3.7 is supported)
82 These are the optional dependencies:
84 - Bash (for Docker and Vagrant)
85 - libopus >= 1.0.1 (for experimental conversation tool)
86 - libpulse >= 2.0 (for experimental conversation tool)
87 - libogg >= 1.3.0 (for experimental conversation tool)
88 - libnss (certtool binary (for convenient
89 installation of GNS proxy))
90 - python2.7 = 2.7 (for gnunet-qr, only python 2.7
92 - python-zbar >= 0.10 (for gnunet-qr, not optional)
93 - TeX Live >= 2012 (for gnunet-bcd[*])
94 - texi2mdoc (for automatic mdoc generation [*2])
95 - libglpk >= 4.45 (for experimental code)
96 - perl5 (for some utilities)
97 - guile 1.6.4 (or later up to 1.8?, for
98 gnunet-download-manager)
99 - bluez (for bluetooth support)
101 - libpbc >= 0.5.14 (for Attribute-Based Encryption and
102 Identity Provider functionality)
103 - libgabe (for Attribute-Based Encryption and
104 Identity Provider functionality, from
105 https://github.com/schanzen/libgabe)
107 Recommended autotools for compiling the Git version are:
114 [*] Mandatory for compiling the info output of the documentation,
115 a limited subset ('texlive-tiny' in Guix) is enough.
117 [*1] The default configuration is to build the info output of the
118 documentation, and therefore require texinfo. You can pass
119 '--disable-documentation' to the configure script to change this.
121 [*2] If you still prefer to have documentation, you can pass
122 '--with-section7' to build mdoc documentation (experimental
123 stages in gnunet). If this proves to be reliable, we will
124 include the mdoc output in the release tarballs.
125 Contrary to the name, texi2mdoc does not require texinfo,
126 It is a standalone ISO C utility.
128 [*3] GNU make introduced the != operator in version 4.0.
129 GNU make was released in october 2013, reasonable to
130 be widespread by now. If this is not working out for
131 you, open a bug so that we can get a more portable
134 [*4] We are commited to portable tools and solutions
135 where possible. New scripts should be Posix SH
136 compatible, current and older scripts are
137 in the process of being rewritten to comply
138 with this requirement.
143 GNUnet's directed acyclic graph (DAG) will require around 0.74 GiB
144 Diskspace, with GNUNet itself taking around 8 - 9.2 MiB reported by
145 the build on GNU Guix.
154 We recommend to use binary packages provided by your Operating System's
155 package manager. GNUnet is reportedly available for at least:
157 GNU Guix, Nix, Debian, ALT Linux, Archlinux, Deepin, Devuan, Hyperbola,
158 Kali Linux, LEDE/OpenWRT, Manjaro, Parabola, Pardus, Parrot, PureOS,
159 Raspbian, Rosa, Trisquel, and Ubuntu.
161 If GNUnet is available for your Operating System and it is missing,
162 send us feedback so that we can add it to this list. Furthermore, if
163 you are interested in packaging GNUnet for your Operating System,
164 get in touch with us at gnunet-developers@gnu.org if you require
167 If you were using an Operating System with the apt package manager,
168 GNUnet could be installed as simple as:
170 $ apt-get install gnunet
172 Generic installation instructions are in the INSTALL file in this
175 Scope of Operating System support
176 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
177 We actively support GNUnet on a broad range of Free Software Operating
180 For proprietary Operating Systems, like for example Microsoft Windows
181 or Apple OS X, we accept patches if they don't break anything for
182 other Operating Systems.
183 If you are implementing support for a proprietary Operating System,
184 you should be aware that progress in our codebase could break
185 functionality on your OS and cause unpredicted behavior we can
186 not test. However, we do not break support on Operating Systems
187 with malicious intent.
188 Regressions which do occur on these Operating Systems are 3rd
189 class issues and we expect users and developers of these
190 Operating Systems to send proposed patches to fix regressions.
192 For more information about our stand on some of the motivating
193 points here, read the 'Philosophy' Chapter of our handbook.
195 Building GNUnet from source
196 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
198 IMPORTANT: You can read further notes about compilation from source in
199 the handbook under doc/handbook/, which includes notes about specific
200 requirements for operating systems aswell. If you are a package
201 mantainer for an Operating System we invite you to add your notes if
202 you feel it is necessary and can not be covered in your Operating
203 System's documentation.
205 Two prominent examples which currently lack cross-compilation
206 support in GNUnet (and native binaries) are MS Windows and Apple macOS.
207 For macOS we recommend you to do the build process via Homebrew and a
208 recent XCode installation. We don't recommend using GNUnet with any
209 recent MS Windows system as it officially spies on its users (according
210 to its T&C), defying some of the purposes of GNUnet.
212 Note that some functions of GNUnet require "root" access. GNUnet will
213 install (tiny) SUID binaries for those functions is you run "make
214 install" as root. If you do not, GNUnet will still work, but some
215 functionality will not be available (including certain forms of NAT
218 GNUnet requires the GNU MP library (https://www.gnu.org/software/gmp/)
219 and libgcrypt (https://www.gnupg.org/). You can specify the path to
220 libgcrypt by passing "--with-gcrypt=PATH" to configure. You will also
221 need either sqlite (http://www.sqlite.org/), MySQL
222 (http://www.mysql.org/) or PostGres (http://www.postgres.org/).
224 If you install from source, you need to install GNU libextractor first
225 (download from https://www.gnu.org/software/libextractor/). We also
226 recommend installing GNU libmicrohttpd (download from
227 https://www.gnu.org/software/libmicrohttpd/). Furthermore we recommend
228 libgnurl (from https://gnunet.org/en/gnurl.html).
229 Then you can start the actual GNUnet compilation process with:
232 $ export GNUNET_PREFIX=/usr/local/lib # or other directory of your choice
234 # adduser --system --home "/var/lib/gnunet" --group gnunet --shell /bin/sh
235 # ./configure --prefix=$GNUNET_PREFIX/.. --with-extractor=$LE_PREFIX
238 And finally install GNUnet with:
242 Complete the process by either adjusting one of our example service files
243 in 'contrib/services' or by running:
245 # sudo -u gnunet gnunet-arm -s
248 Note that running the 'configure' and 'make install' steps as
249 root (or with sudo) is required as some parts of the installation
250 require the creation of SUID binaries. The installation will
251 work if you do not run these steps as root, but some components
252 may not be installed in the perfect place or with the right
253 permissions and thus won't work.
255 This will create the users and groups needed for running GNUnet
256 securely and then compile and install GNUnet to $GNUNET_PREFIX/../bin/,
257 $GNUNET_PREFIX/ and $GNUNET_PREFIX/../share/ and start the system
258 with the default configuration. It is strongly recommended that you
259 add a user "gnunet" to run "gnunet-arm". You can then still run the
260 end-user applications as another user.
262 If you create a system user "gnunet", it is recommended that you edit
263 the configuration file slightly so that data can be stored in the
264 system user home directory at "/var/lib/gnunet". Depending on what
265 the $HOME-directory of your "gnunet" user is, you might need to set
266 the SERVICEHOME option in section "[PATHS]" to "/var/lib/gnunet" to
267 do this. Depending on your personal preferences, you may also want to
268 use "/etc/gnunet.conf" for the location of the configuration file in
269 this case (instead of ~gnunet/.config/gnunet.conf"). In this case,
270 you need to start GNUnet using "gnunet-arm -s -c /etc/gnunet.conf" or
271 set "XDG_CONFIG_HOME=/etc/".
273 You can avoid running 'make install' as root if you run configure
274 with the "--with-sudo=yes" option and have extensive sudo rights
275 (can run "chmod +s" and "chown" via 'sudo'). If you run 'make install'
276 as a normal user without sudo rights (or the configure option),
277 certain binaries that require additional priviledges will not be
278 installed properly (and autonomous NAT traversal, WLAN, DNS/GNS and
279 the VPN will then not work).
281 If you run 'configure' and 'make install' as root or use the '--with-sudo'
282 option, GNUnet's build system will install "libnss_gns*" libraries to
283 "/lib/" regardless (!) of the $GNUNET_PREFIX you might have specified,
284 as those libraries must be in "/lib/". If you are packaging GNUnet
285 for binary distribution, this may cause your packaging script to miss
286 those plugins, so you might need to do some additional manual work to
287 include those libraries in your binary package(s). Similarly, if you
288 want to use the GNUnet naming system and did NOT run GNUnet's 'make
289 install' process with sudo rights, the libraries will be installed to
290 "$GNUNET_PREFIX" and you will have to move them to "/lib/"
293 Finally, if you are compiling the code from git, you have to
294 run "sh ./bootstrap" before running "./configure". If you receive an error during
295 the running of "sh ./bootstrap" that looks like "macro `AM_PATH_GTK'
296 not found in library", you may need to run aclocal by hand with the -I
297 option, pointing to your aclocal m4 macros, i.e.
299 $ aclocal -I /usr/local/share/aclocal
305 Note that additional, per-user configuration files can be created by
306 each user. However, this is usually not necessary as there are few
307 per-user options that normal users would want to modify. The defaults
308 that are shipped with the installation are usually just fine.
310 The gnunet-setup tool is particularly useful to generate the master
311 configuration for the peer. gnunet-setup can be used to configure and
312 test (!) the network settings, choose which applications should be run
313 and configure databases. Other options you might want to control
314 include system limitations (such as disk space consumption, bandwidth,
315 etc). The resulting configuration files are human-readable and can
316 theoretically be created or edited by hand.
318 gnunet-setup is a separate download and requires somewhat recent
319 versions of GTK+ and Glade. You can also create the configuration file
320 by hand, but this is not recommended. For more general information
321 about the GNU build process read the INSTALL file.
323 GNUnet uses two types of configuration files, one that specifies the
324 system-wide defaults (typically located in
325 $GNUNET_PREFIX/../share/gnunet/config.d/) and a second one that overrides
326 default values with user-specific preferences. The user-specific
327 configuration file should be located in "~/.config/gnunet.conf" or its
328 location can be specified by giving the "-c" option to the respective
331 For more information about the configuration (as well as usage) refer
332 to the 'GNUnet User Handbook' chapter of the documentation, included
333 in this software distribution.
339 For detailed usage notes, instructions and examples, refer to the
340 included 'GNUnet Handbook'.
342 First, you must obtain an initial list of GNUnet hosts. Knowing a
343 single peer is sufficient since after that GNUnet propagates
344 information about other peers. Note that the default configuration
345 contains URLs from where GNUnet downloads an initial hostlist
346 whenever it is started. If you want to create an alternative URL for
347 others to use, the file can be generated on any machine running
348 GNUnet by periodically executing
350 $ cat $SERVICEHOME/data/hosts/* > the_file
352 and offering 'the_file' via your web server. Alternatively, you can
353 run the build-in web server by adding '-p' to the OPTIONS value
354 in the "hostlist" section of gnunet.conf and opening the respective
355 HTTPPORT to the public.
357 If the solution with the hostlist URL is not feasible for your
358 situation, you can also add hosts manually. Simply copy the hostkeys
359 to "$SERVICEHOME/data/hosts/" (where $SERVICEHOME is the directory
360 specified in the gnunet.conf configuration file). You can also use
361 "gnunet-peerinfo -g" to GET a URI for a peer and "gnunet-peerinfo -p
362 URI" to add a URI from another peer. Finally, GNUnet peers that use
363 UDP or WLAN will discover each other automatically (if they are in the
364 vicinity of each other) using broadcasts (IPv4/WLAN) or multicasts
367 The local node is started using "gnunet-arm -s". We recommend to run
368 GNUnet 24/7 if you want to maximize your anonymity, as this makes
369 partitioning attacks harder.
371 Once your peer is running, you should then be able to access GNUnet
374 $ gnunet-search KEYWORD
376 This will display a list of results to the console. You can abort
377 the command using "CTRL-C". Then use
379 $ gnunet-download -o FILENAME GNUNET_URI
381 to retrieve a file. The GNUNET_URI is printed by gnunet-search
382 together with a description. To publish files on GNUnet, use the
383 "gnunet-publish" command.
386 The GTK+ (or: Gimp Toolkit) user interface is shipped separately.
387 After installing gnunet-gtk, you can invoke the setup tool and
388 the file-sharing GUI with:
393 For further documentation, see our webpage or the 'GNUnet User Handbook',
394 included in this software distribution.
400 Contributions are welcome. Please submit bugs you find to
401 https://bugs.gnunet.org/ or our bugs mailinglist.
402 Please make sure to run the script "contrib/scripts/gnunet-bugreport"
403 and include the output with your bug reports. More about how to
404 report bugs can be found in the GNUnet FAQ on the webpage. Submit
405 patches via E-Mail to gnunet-developers@gnu.org, formated with
408 In order to run the unit tests by hand (instead of using "make check"),
409 you need to set the environment variable "GNUNET_PREFIX" to the
410 directory where GNUnet's libraries are installed.
411 Before running any testcases, you must complete the installation.
415 $ ./configure --prefix=$SOMEWHERE
418 $ export $GNUNET_PREFIX=$SOMEWHERE
421 Some of the testcases require python >= 3.7, and the python modules
422 "python-future" (http://python-future.org/) and "pexpect" to be installed.
423 If any testcases fail to pass on your system, run
424 "contrib/scripts/gnunet-bugreport" (in the repository) or "gnunet-bugreport"
425 when you already have GNUnet installed and report its output together with
426 information about the failing testcase(s) to the Mantis bugtracking
427 system at https://bugs.gnunet.org/.
430 Running HTTP on port 80 and HTTPS on port 443
431 =============================================
433 In order to hide GNUnet's HTTP/HTTPS traffic perfectly, you might
434 consider running GNUnet's HTTP/HTTPS transport on port 80/443.
435 However, we do not recommend running GNUnet as root. Instead, forward
436 port 80 to say 1080 with this command (as root, in your startup
439 # iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp -m tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 1080
443 # iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp -m tcp --dport 443 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 4433
445 Then set in the HTTP section of gnunet.conf the "ADVERTISED_PORT" to
446 "80" and "PORT" to 1080 and similarly in the HTTPS section the
447 "ADVERTISED_PORT" to "443" and "PORT" to 4433.
449 You can do the same trick for the TCP and UDP transports if you want
450 to map them to a priviledged port (from the point of view of the
451 network). However, we are not aware of this providing any advantages
454 If you are already running an HTTP or HTTPS server on port 80 (or 443),
455 you may be able to configure it as a "ReverseProxy". Here, you tell
456 GNUnet that the externally visible URI is some sub-page on your website,
457 and GNUnet can then tunnel its traffic via your existing HTTP server.
458 This is particularly powerful if your existing server uses HTTPS, as
459 it makes it harder for an adversary to distinguish normal traffic to
460 your server from GNUnet traffic. Finally, even if you just use HTTP,
461 you might benefit (!) from ISP's traffic shaping as opposed to being
462 throttled by ISPs that dislike P2P. Details for configuring the
463 reverse proxy are documented on our website.
471 A HTML version of the new GNUnet manual is deployed at
473 https://docs.gnunet.org
475 which currently displays just GNUnet documentation. Until 2019
476 we will add more reading material.
480 In almost 20 years various people in our community have written and
481 collected a good number of papers which have been implemented in
482 GNUnet or projects around GNUnet.
483 There are currently 2 ways to get them:
485 * Using git (NOTE: 1.1 GiB as of 2019-03-09):
486 git clone https://git.gnunet.org/bibliography.git
488 https://old.gnunet.org/bibliography
490 The Drupal access will be replaced by a new interface to our
491 bibliography in 2019.
497 * https://gnunet.org/
498 * https://bugs.gnunet.org
499 * https://git.gnunet.org
500 * http://www.gnu.org/software/gnunet/
501 * http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnunet-developers
502 * http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-gnunet
503 * http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-gnunet
504 * http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnunet-svn