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>