Configuring a Private chat between users

Any two users on the darkirc server can establish a fully encrypted communication medium between each other using a basic keypair setup.

Configuring darkirc_config.toml

darkirc_config.toml should be created by default in ~/.config/darkfi/ when you first run darkirc.

Generate a keypair using the following command:

% darkirc --gen-chacha-keypair

This will generate a Public Key and a Private Key.

Save the Private key safely & add it to the darkirc_config.toml file under [crypto] as shown below.

[crypto]
dm_chacha_secret = “your_private_key_goes_here”

To share your Public Key with a user over darkirc you can use one of the public channels or via an external app like Signal, as plaintext DMs are disabled in darkirc.

Note: When sharing/receiving public keys (i.e modifying darkirc_config.toml), we don't have to restart the daemon for the new changes to take effect, we simply send /rehash command from IRC client (or /quote rehash)

Note: If you use the darkirc's public channel, your message will be publically visible on the IRC chat.

See the example darkirc_config.toml for more details

Example

Lets start by configuring our contacts list in the generated darkirc_config.toml file (you can also refer to the examples written in the comments of the toml file), let's assume alice and bob want to privately chat after they have each other's public keys:

Alice would add bob to her contact list in her own config file:

[contact.”bob”]
dm_chacha_public = “D6UzKA6qCG5Mep16i6pJYkUCQcnp46E1jPBsUhyJiXhb”

And Bob would do the same:

[contact.”alice”]
dm_chacha_public = “9sfMEVLphJ4dTX3SEvm6NBhTbWDqfsxu7R2bo88CtV8g”

Lets see an Example where 'alice' sends “Hi” message to 'bob' using the /msg command

/msg bob Hi

Note for Weechat Client Users:
When you private message someone as shown above, the buffer will not pop in weechat client until you receive a reply from that person.

For example here 'alice' will not see any new buffer on her irc interface for the recent message which she just send to 'bob' until 'bob' replies, but 'bob' will get a buffer shown on his irc client with the message 'Hi'.

Reply from 'bob' to 'alice'

/msg alice welcome!

Or instead of /msg command, you can use:

/query bob hello

This works exactly the same as /msg except it will open a new buffer with Bob in your client regardless of sending a msg or not.

Note: The contact name is not the irc nickname, it can be anything you want, and you should use it when DMing.

Note: It's always a good idea to save your keys somewhere safe, but in case you lost your Public Key and you still have your Private key in darkirc_config.toml file, you recover the Public Key like so:

% darkirc --get_chacha_pubkey <chacha-secret>