GNUnet is peer-to-peer framework focusing on security. The first and
primary application for GNUnet is anonymous file-sharing. GNUnet is
currently developed by a worldwide group of independent free software
-developers. GNUnet is a part of the GNU project (http://www.gnu.org/).
+developers. GNUnet is a GNU package (http://www.gnu.org/).
This is an ALPHA release. There are known and significant bugs as
well as many missing features in this release.
-For a longer description of the GNUnet System see our webpages
-http://www.gnu.org/software/gnunet/ and https://ng.gnunet.org/.
+Additional documentation about GNUnet can be found at
+https://gnunet.org/.
Dependencies:
=============
-For the impatient, here is the list of immediate dependencies for
-running GNUnet:
+Please note that for many of its dependencies GNUnet requires very
+recent versions of the libraries which are often NOT to be found in
+stable distributions in 2011. While using older packages may in some
+cases on some operating systems may seem to work in some limited
+fashion, we are in many cases aware of serious problems with older
+packages. Hence please make sure to use the versions listed below.
+
+These are the direct dependencies for running GNUnet:
- libextractor >= 0.6.1
-- libmicrohttpd >= 0.4.6
+- libmicrohttpd >= 0.9.17
- libgcrypt >= 1.2
-- libgmp >= 4.0
-- libcurl >= 7.15.4
+- libcurl >= 7.21.0
+- libunistring >= 0.9.2
- libltdl >= 2.2 (part of GNU libtool)
-- sqlite >= 3.0 (alternative to MySQL)
-- mysql >= ??? (not yet supported)
-- postgres >= ??? (not yet supported)
+- sqlite >= 3.0 (default database)
+- mysql >= 5.1 (alternative to sqLite)
+- postgres >= 8.3 (alternative to sqLite)
Recommended autotools for compiling the SVN version are:
- autoconf >= 2.59
- automake >= 1.11.1
- libtool >= 2.2
-See also README.debian for a list of Debian packages.
-
How to install?
===============
The fastest way is to use a binary package if it is available for your
system. For a more detailed description, read the installation
-instructions on the webpage at https://ng.gnunet.org/installation.
+instructions on the webpage at https://gnunet.org/installation.
+
+Note that some functions of GNUnet require "root" access. GNUnet will
+install (tiny) SUID binaries for those functions is you run "make
+install" as root. If you do not, GNUnet will still work, but some
+functionality will not be available (including certain forms of NAT
+traversal).
+
+GNUnet requires the GNU MP library (http://www.gnu.org/software/gmp/)
+and libgcrypt (http://www.gnupg.org/). You can specify the path to
+libgcrypt by passing "--with-gcrypt=PATH" to configure. You will also
+need either sqlite (http://www.sqlite.org/), MySQL
+(http://www.mysql.org/) or PostGres (http://www.postgres.org/).
If you install from source, you need to install GNU libextractor first
(download from http://www.gnu.org/software/libextractor/). We also
-recommend installing GNU libmicrohttpd. Then you can start the actual
-GNUnet compilation process with:
+recommend installing GNU libmicrohttpd (download from
+http://www.gnu.org/software/libmicrohttpd/). Then you can start the
+actual GNUnet compilation process with:
$ ./configure --prefix=$HOME --with-extractor=$HOME
$ make
# make install
-# sudo -u gnunet gnunet-setup # (note: does not yet exist!)
+# sudo -u gnunet mkdir ~/.gnunet/
+# sudo -u gnunet touch ~/.gnunet/gnunet.conf
# sudo -u gnunet gnunet-arm -s
-This will compile and install GNUnet to ~/bin/, ~/lib/ and ~/man/.
-gnunet-setup will create the configuration; this step is interactive.
-You can run gnunet-setup as root for a system-wide installation or as
-a particular user to create a personal installation. It is
-recommended that you add a user "gnunet" to run "gnunet-arm". You can
-then still run the end-user applications as another user. If you
+This will compile and install GNUnet to $HOME/bin/, $HOME/lib/ and
+$HOME/share/ and start the system with the default configuration. It
+is recommended that you add a user "gnunet" to run "gnunet-arm". You
+can then still run the end-user applications as another user. If you
create a user "gnunet", it is recommended that you edit the
configuration file slightly so that data can be stored in
"/var/lib/gnunet"; you may also want to use "/etc/gnunet.conf" for the
-configuration in this case.
+location of the configuration file in this case.
+
+You can avoid running 'make install' as root if you run configure
+with the "--with-sudo=yes" option and have extensive sudo rights
+(can run chmod +s and chown via sudo). If you run 'make install'
+as a normal user without sudo rights (or the configure option),
+certain binaries that require additional priviledges will not be
+installed properly (and NAT traversal, WLAN and VPN will not work).
Note that additional, per-user configuration files
(~/.gnunet/gnunet.conf) need to be created by each user (for example,
-by running gnunet-setup). For more general information about the GNU
-build process read the INSTALL file.
-
-GNUnet requires the GNU MP library (http://www.gnu.org/software/gmp/)
-and libgcrypt. You can specify the path to libgcrypt by passing
-"--with-gcrypt=PATH" to configure. You will also need either sqlite
-(version 3 or higher) or MySQL (version 5.0 or higher).
+by running gnunet-setup). Note that gnunet-setup is a separate
+download and requires recent versions of GTK+ and Glade; you can also
+edit the configuration file by hand, but this is not recommended. For
+more general information about the GNU build process read the INSTALL
+file.
If you are compiling the code from subversion, you have to run
". bootstrap" before ./configure. If you receive an error during the
Configuration
=============
-// FIXME: update this section once we have gnunet-setup! GNUnet uses
-two types of configuration files, one for the daemon (called
-gnunetd.conf) and one for each user (gnunet.conf). You can create and
-edit these configuration files with the gnunet-setup tool. The
-defaults that are created the first time you run gnunet-setup are
-usually ok, you may want to adjust the limitations (space consumption,
-bandwidth, etc.) though. The configuration files are human-readable;
-GNUnet's configuration is typically located at
-"~/.gnunet/gnunet.conf".
+GNUnet uses two types of configuration files, one that specifies the
+system-wide defaults (typically located in /usr/share/gnunet/defaults
+.conf) and a second one that overrides default values with
+user-specific preferences. The user-specific configuration file
+should be located in "~/.gnunet/gnunet.conf" or its location can be
+specified by giving the "-c" option to the respective GNUnet
+application.
-You MUST create "~/.gnunet/gnunet.conf" explicitly before starting
-GNUnet, and the recommended way to do this is to run gnunet-setup.
-You can also create an empty configuration file, in which case
-default values will be used for everything.
-
-If you want to use a different configuration file, pass the name of
-the configuration file as an argument with the option "-c" to any
-GNUnet application.
+The defaults that are shipped with the installation are usually ok,
+you may want to adjust the limitations (space consumption, bandwidth,
+etc.) though. The configuration files are human-readable. Note that
+you MUST create "~/.gnunet/gnunet.conf" explicitly before starting
+GNUnet. You can either run gnunet-setup (available as part of the
+gnunet-gtk source package) or simply create an empty file.
Usage
and offering 'the_file' via your web server. Alternatively, you can
run the build-in web server by adding '-p' to the OPTIONS value
-in the "hostlist" section of gnunet.conf.
+in the "hostlist" section of gnunet.conf and opening the respective
+HTTPPORT to the public.
-If the solution with the URL is not feasible for your situation, you
-can also add hosts manually. Simply copy the hostkeys to
-"$SERVICEHOME/data/hosts/" (where $SERVICEHOME is the directory
-specified in the /etc/gnunet.conf configuration file).
+If the solution with the hostlist URL is not feasible for your
+situation, you can also add hosts manually. Simply copy the hostkeys
+to "$SERVICEHOME/data/hosts/" (where $SERVICEHOME is the directory
+specified in the gnunet.conf configuration file).
Now start the local node using "gnunet-arm -s". GNUnet should run 24/7 if
-you want to maximize your anonymity.
+you want to maximize your anonymity.
-// FIXME: gnunet-gtk is not yet supported in 0.9.x
-The GTK user interface is shipped separately from GNUnet. After
-downloading and installing gnunet-gtk, you can invoke the GUI with:
-
-$ gnunet-gtk
-
-// FIXME: gnunet-qt is not yet supported in 0.9.x
-For Qt/KDE users, there is also a QT user interface (also shipped
-separately). If you install gnunet-qt, you can invoke the GUI with:
-
-$ gnunet-qt
-
-If you want to use the shell (part of this distribution), use
+You should then be able to access GNUnet using the shell:
$ gnunet-search KEYWORD
together with a description. To publish files on GNUnet, use the
"gnunet-publish" command.
-// FIXME: auto-share is not yet supported in 0.9.x
-In order to share files, the easiest way is to create a directory
-with the files (and directories) that you want to share and run
-$ nohup gnunet-auto-share NAME-OF-THE-DIRECTORY &
+The GTK user interface is shipped separately. After downloading and
+installing gnunet-gtk, you can invoke the GUI with:
+
+$ gnunet-gtk
For further documentation, see our webpage.
$ export GNUNET_PREFIX=$SOMEWHERE
$ make check
-If any testcases fail to pass on your system, run "contrib/report.sh"
-and report the output together with information about the failing
-testcase to the Mantis bugtracking system at
-https://gnunet.org/bugs/.
+Some of the testcases require python >= 2.6 and pexpect to be
+installed. If any testcases fail to pass on your system, run
+"contrib/report.sh" and report the output together with
+information about the failing testcase to the Mantis bugtracking
+system at https://gnunet.org/bugs/.
-Running http on port 80
-=======================
+Running http on port 80 and https on port 443
+=============================================
-In order to hide GNUnet's HTTP traffic perfectly, you might consider
-running GNUnet's HTTP transport on port 80. However, you should not
-run GNUnet as root. Instead, forward port 80 to say 8080 with this
-command (as root, in your startup scripts):
+In order to hide GNUnet's HTTP/HTTPS traffic perfectly, you might
+consider running GNUnet's HTTP/HTTPS transport on port 80/443.
+However, we do not recommend running GNUnet as root. Instead, forward
+port 80 to say 8080 with this command (as root, in your startup
+scripts):
# iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp -m tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 8080
-Then set in the HTTP section of gnunetd.conf the "ADVERTISED-PORT"
-to "80" and "PORT" to 8080. You can do the same trick for the
-TCP and UDP transports if you want to map them to a priviledged
-port (from the point of view of the network).
+or for HTTPS
+# iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp -m tcp --dport 443 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 4433
-Running the SMTP transport
-==========================
+Then set in the HTTP section of gnunet.conf the "ADVERTISED-PORT" to
+"80" and "PORT" to 8080 and similarly in the HTTPS section the
+"ADVERTISED-PORT" to "443" and "PORT" to 4433.
-// NOTE: SMTP is not currently available in this version of GNUnet
-Running GNUnet over SMTP (e-mail) is a bit more involved. Note that
-you do not need to run all transports (only running the NAT transport
-is the only thing that will not work). If you really want to do
-P2P over SMTP, read the instructions at http://gnunet.org/smtp.php3
+You can do the same trick for the TCP and UDP transports if you want
+to map them to a priviledged port (from the point of view of the
+network). However, we are not aware of this providing any advantages
+at this point.
Stay tuned
==========
-* http://www.gnu.org/software/gnunet/
-* http://gnunet.org/
+* https://gnunet.org/
* https://gnunet.org/bugs/
-* https://ng.gnunet.org/
+* https://gnunet.org/svn/
+* http://www.gnu.org/software/gnunet/
* http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnunet-developers
* http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-gnunet
* http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-gnunet
* http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnunet-svn
-