Hosting anonymous nodes
Using Tor, we can host anonymous nodes as Tor hidden services. To do this, we need to set up our Tor daemon and create a hidden service. The following instructions should work on any Linux system.
1. Install Tor
Tor can usually be installed with your package manager. For example
on an apt
based system we can run:
# apt install tor
This will install it. Now in /etc/tor/torrc
we can set up the hidden
service. For hosting an anonymous ircd
node, set up the following
lines in the file:
HiddenServiceDir /var/lib/tor/darkfi_ircd
HiddenServicePort 25551 127.0.0.1:25551
Then restart Tor:
# /etc/init.d/tor restart
You can grab the hostname of your hidden service from the directory:
# cat /var/lib/tor/darkfi_ircd/hostname
For example purposes, let's assume it's
jamie3vkiwibfiwucd6vxijskbhpjdyajmzeor4mc4i7yopvpo4p7cyd.onion
.
2. Setup ircd
After compiling ircd
, run it once to spawn the config file. Then
edit it to contain the following:
inbound = ["tcp://127.0.0.1:25551"]
external_addr = ["tor://jamie3vkiwibfiwucd6vxijskbhpjdyajmzeor4mc4i7yopvpo4p7cyd.onion:25551"]
Now when you start ircd
, the hidden service will be announced as
a peer and people will be able to connect to it when they discover
you as a peer.
These instructions are also applicable to other nodes in the DarkFi
ecosystem, e.g. darkfid
.