I been trying to understand the difference between i2p to things like Tor and VPNs.

To my understanding, i2p is its own closed off network, meaning you cannot use i2p to access stuff outside of i2p like the clear net, onion domains, etc?

When using i2p, all traffic is relayed through other users in the i2p network like Tor but there is really no such thing as an exit node since you cannot access content outside of i2p?

Therefore i2p is good for hosting .i2p domains that can only be accessed in the i2p network and is good for P2P applications like Bittorrent?

Is this correct? Or am I still misunderstanding i2p?

And therefore could you and other users on i2p run a bitcoin nodes which will only be federated with bitcoin nodes with the i2p network and never federate with the rest of the bitcoin network, essentially making a fork of bitcoin blockchain on i2p?

And is there any other good use cases to i2p besides dark net websites and torrenting?

[2.54.0] - 2024-10-06

Added

• Maintain recently connected routers list to avoid false-positive peer test
• Limited connectivity mode(through proxy)
• "i2p.streaming.profile" tunnel's param to let tunnel select also low-bandwidth routers
• Limit stream's inbound speed
• Periodic ack requests in ratchets session
• Set congestion cap G immediately if through proxy
• Show tunnel's routers bandwidth caps in web console
• Handle immediate ack requested flag in SSU2 data packets
• Resend and ack peer test and relay messages
• "senduseragent" HTTP proxy's param to pass through user's User-Agent

Changed

• Exclude 'N' routers from high-bandwidth routers for client tunnels
• C++11 support has been dropped, the minimal requirement is C++17 now, C++20 for some compilers
• Removed dependency from boost::date_time and boost::filesystem
• Set default i2cp.leaseSetEncType to 0,4 and to 4 for server tunnels
• Handle i2cp.inboundlimit and i2cp.outboundlimit params in I2CP
• Publish LeaseSet with new timestamp update if tunnel was replaced in the same second
• Increase max number of generated tags to 800 per tagset
• Routing path expiration by time instead num attempts
• Save timestamp from epoch instead local time to profiles
• Update introducer's iTag if session to introducer was replaced to new one
• RTT, window size and number of NACKs calculation for streaming
• Don't select same peer for tunnel too often
• Use WinApi for data path UTF-8 conversion for Windows

Fixed

• Jump link crash if address book is disabled
• Race condition if connect through an introducer
• "Date" header in I2PControl response
• Incomplete response from web console
• AEAD verification with LibreSSL
• Number of generated tags and new keys for follow-on tagsets
• Expired leases in LeaseSet
• Attempts to send HolePunch to 0.0.0.0
• Incorrect options size in quick ack streaming packet
• Low bandwidth router appeared as first peer in high-bandwidth client tunnel

I ask because it would be nice to use the "I2P mixed mode" features of qbittorrent, but I want to keep my clearnet traffic on the VPN.

Background

I have I2PD running only on my home gateway for better tunnel uptime.

To ensure that torrent traffic never escapes the VPN tunnel, I have configured qbittorrent to use only the VPN Wireguard interface.

Problem

I think this means qbittorrent I2P traffic will flow into the VPN tunnel, but then the VPN host won't know how to route back to my home gateway where the SAM bridge is running.

I've configured my i2pd proxy correctly so things are somewhat working. I was able to visit notbob.i2p. But sometimes Firefox really likes to replace "http" with "https" when I click on a link or even enter the URL manually into the bar. I have "HTTPS-only mode" turned off, and I also have "browser.fixup.fallback-to-https" set to "false" and "network.stricttransportsecurity.preloadlist" to false.

I tried spying on the HTTP traffic in web dev tools, and I see the request gets NS_ERROR_UNKNOWN_HOST. This does not happen when using the xh CLI HTTP client, so Firefox is doing something weird with name resolution. I made sure to turn off the Firefox DNS over HTTPs setting as well, but it didn't seem to make a difference.

I assume that name resolution needs to happen in i2pd. How can I force Firefox to let that happen?

Update: Chrome works fine.

Update: I started fresh and simplified the setup and it seems fixed. I'm not entirely sure why. The only things I've changed from default are DoH and the manual HTTP proxy.

I recently heard about DHT support on I2Psnark, and got curious whether qBittorrent supports this feature on I2P as well. When I first set up qBittorrent to work with I2P, the guide I used instructed to disable DHT, PeX and Local Peer Discovery due to lacking support and security risks. Has anything changed? Is libtorrent still lagging behind on these features?

--Stolen and reposted here, sorry zab, but I hope you're fine with some extra promotion--

Hi,

[...]

After about a year off MuWire is back to the land of the living and the network has ~50 active users at any given time. Here is how to set it up and connect:

1. Go to the GitHub release page

2. Download the connections.txt file and save it somewhere

3. Depending on your operating system:

On Windows, download the MuWire-0.8.14-beta2.exe installer and run it. It will install everything you need to run MuWire. Skip to step 5.

On Linux, you need to install Java 17 or newer. This will be different on each distribution

On Mac, you need to install Java from [here] (https://jdk.java.net/22/) (available for both Intel and Apple Silicon).

4. Download the [MuWire-0.8.14-beta2.zip] (http://muwire-0.8.14-beta2.zip/) file and unzip it. Run the bin/MuWire script to launch MuWire.

5. Go through the MuWire setup wizard. When the main window appears, select Connections (top-left menu) -> Import connections and select the connections.txt file you saved in step 1.

Watch the bottom right of the main window - there is an icon like a molecule with the number of active connections to the MuWire network. As soon as MuWire connects, you can use it to search, share, download, message other users and more.

Enjoy!

zab_

[2.53.0] - 2024-07-19

Added

• New congestion control algorithm for streaming
• Support miniupnp-2.2.8
• Limit stream's outbound speed
• Flood to next day closest floodfills before UTC midnight
• Recognize duplicated routers and bypass them
• Random SSU2 resend interval

Changed

• Set minimal version to 0.9.69 for floodfills and 0.9.58 for client tunnels
• Removed openssl 1.0.2 support
• Move unsent I2NP messages to the new session if replaced
• Use mt19937 RNG instead rand()
• Update router's congestion caps before initial publishing
• Don't try introducer with invalid address
• Select newest introducers to publish
• Don't request relay tag for every session if we have enough introducers
• Update timestamp for non-reachable or hidden router
• Reset streaming routing path if duplicated SYN received
• Update LeaseSet if inbound tunnel failed
• Reseeds list

Fixed

• Crash when a destination gets terminated
• Expired offline signature upon destination creation
• Race condition between local RouterInfo buffer creation and sending it through the transports

This release, I2P 2.6.0, continues our work by fixing bugs, adding features, and improving the network's reliability.

Newer routers will be favored when selecting floodfill routers. I2PSnark received features which improve the performance of PeX(Peer Exchange), in addition to bug fixes. Legacy transport protocols are being removed, simplifying the code in the UDP transports. Locally-hosted destination will be reachable by local clients without requesting their LeaseSet, improving performance and testability. Additional tweaks were made to peer selection strategies.

I2P no longer allows I2P-over-Tor, connections from Tor exit IP addresses are now blocked. We discourage this because it degrades the performance of I2P and uses up the resources of Tor exits for no benefit. If you are a helpful person running both a Tor Exit and I2P we encourage you to continue to do so, using different IP addresses for each. Non-exit relays and Tor clients are unaffected by this and do not need to change anything.

As usual, we recommend that you update to this release. The best way to maintain security and help the network is to run the latest release.

RELEASE DETAILS Changes

• Router: Increase minimum version for floodfill routers

• Router: Disable I2P over Tor

• Address Book: Cache locally hosted destinations

Bug Fixes

• I2PSnark: Peer Exchange Tweaks

• I2PSnark: Bugfixes

• Router: Peer Selection Tweaks

Other

• Translation updates

From the maintainer "alreadyburnt" on reddit.

Before we begin: Snap(and AppImages) are still not official packages. This still an experimental package and just a side-project of mine.

A few years ago, I got way too interested in these semi-novel packaging systems that the various distributions came out with. I went on a rampage of experimental package creation, often without necessarily knowing the future of the packages themselves. Many versions ago, the most popular of those packages broke in a particu`larly annoying way, and I did not have time to fix it. Until a few weeks ago, that is, and now, it's actually a lot easier for me to be sure that what I'm packaging is going to actually work because I can generate and test the packages continuously.

TL:DR the Snap, which I created, then broke, is now fixed, and it's likely to stay that way. If you are a snap user stuck on an old version, update as soon as possible.

It is generated using jpackage combined with the Easy-Install source. As a package, it functions like the Easy-Install bundle and not like the .deb or .jar installers.

https://snapcraft.io/i2pi2p

What's the real point? Nobody really cares about Snapcraft that much, except maybe Canonical. A lot of people don't even like them. That's not why there's a Snap of I2P now. The reason there's a Snap of I2P now, and that this experiment was not discontinued outright, is because it demonstrates the power of jpackage, the technology underlying the Easy-Install Bundles for Windows, to generate self-contained images that can easily be adapted to Linux package formats. Once you can stick a jpackage inside a Snap, you can just as easily stick it inside of an AppImage. A slightly different manifest format will leave you with a working Flatpak. The same applies to docker-compose and probably many other tools. Or, you can just stick it all into a .zip file and treat it like an I2P portable installation. The files your packaging are always the same, and are simply generated by jpackageing a custom I2P router launcher.

For more information, see:

https://snapcraft.io/i2pi2p

https://github.com/eyedeekay/I2P-Snaps-and-Appimages/

Picked up from the other site. I'm not the dev of this.

Any feedback is welcome, source: https://github.com/umutcamliyurt/I2Proxy

On Windows, installing I2P is easy.

On Linux... not so much. That's because Linux isn't Linux. There's a Debian package, but OpenSuse is its own thing. Is there a way to get I2P, Snark, etc. up and running there without having to jump through too many hoops?

I2P 2.5.2 is released to fix a bug introduced in 2.5.0 causing truncation of some HTTP content.

As usual, we recommend that you update to this release. The best way to maintain security and help the network is to run the latest release.

RELEASE DETAILS

Changes

• Console: Update rrd4j to 3.9.1-preview
• Router: Publish G cap if symmetric natted

Bug Fixes

• i2ptunnel: Fix bug causing truncation of some HTTP content
• i2ptunnel: Fix custom option form width (light theme)
• Tunnels: Fix selection of peers with expired RIs

Other

• Translation updates

[2.52.0] - 2024-05-12

Added

• Separate threads for persisting RouterInfos and profiles to disk
• Give preference to address with direct connection
• Exclude addresses with incorrect static or intro key
• Avoid two firewalled routers in the row in tunnel
• Drop unsolicited database search replies

Changed

• Increase number of hashes to 16 in exploratory lookup reply
• Reduce number of a RouterInfo lookup attempts to 5
• Reset stream RTO if outbound tunnel was changed
• Insert previously excluded floodfill back when successfully connected
• Increase maximum stream resend attempts to 9
• Reply to exploratory lookups with only confirmed routers if low tunnel build rate
• Don't accept too old RouterInfo
• Build client tunnels through confirmed routers only if low tunnel build rate
• Manage netDb requests more frequently
• Don't reply with closer than us only floodfills for lookup

Fixed

• Crash on router lookup if exploratory pool is not ready
• Race condition in excluded peers for next lookup
• Excessive number of lookups for same destination
• Race condition with transport peers during shutdown
• Corrupted RouterInfo files

Some projects have been DMCA'ed and hosting them on I2P could be a viable alternative.

I2P 2.5.1 is being released to address Denial-of-Service Attacks affecting the I2P network and services. With this release we disable the IP-based parts of the Sybil attack detection tool which were targeted to amplify the effect and duration of the attack. This should help the network return to normal operation. Those of you who have disabled the Sybil attack detection tool may safely re-enable it. Adjustments to other subsystems to improve RouterInfo validation and peer selection have also been made.

As usual, we recommend that you update to this release. The best way to maintain security and help the network is to run the latest release.

I'm looking to try out i2p but I'm having trouble getting it going.

I have a docker-compose container going with this docker-compose.yml:

version: "3.5"
services:
    i2p:
        image: geti2p/i2p
        ports:
            - 4444:4444
            - 127.0.0.1:6668:6668
            - 7657:7657
            - 54321:12345
            - 54321:12345/udp
        volumes:
            - ./i2pconfig:/i2p/.i2p
            - ./i2ptorrents:/i2psnark
        restart: always
        environment:
            - IP_ADDR=0.0.0.0
            - JVM_XMX=1024m

The container starts up and the log outputs:

$ docker logs i2p-i2p-1 
Starting I2P
[startapp] Running in container
[startapp] setting reachable IP to container IP 0.0.0.0
Starting I2P 2.4.0-0

But when I try to access the console, I'm seeing:

$ curl localhost:7657
curl: (56) Recv failure: Connection reset by peer

Is there anything else that I need to do here?

The I2P network is currently under a Denial-of-Service attack. This attack affects I2P and i2pd but in different ways and is having a serious effect on network health. Reachability of I2P sites is badly degraded.

Java I2P users are suggested to disable the sybil attack tool, delete the sybil-blocklist, and re-start their routers.

To disable the sybil attack detector tool

Open the sybil attack detector in your router console at http://127.0.0.1:7657/netdb?f=3&m=15

Change "Background Analysis Run Frequency" to "Never"

Click "Save" to save the settings.

To delete the sybil blocklist, run:

On Debian and Ubuntu:

rm "/var/lib/i2p/i2p-config/sybil-analysis/blocklist-sybil.txt"

On other Linuxes and on Mac OSX:

rm "$HOME/.i2p/sybil-analysis/blocklist-sybil.txt"

And on Windows:

del %LocalAppData%\i2p\sybil-analysis\blocklist-sybil.txt"

When you are finished, re-start your I2P router.

If you are hosting a service inside I2P and it is hosted on a Floodfill router, you should consider multihoming the service on a Floodfill-disabled router to improve reachability. Other mitigations are being discussed but a long-term, backward-compatible solution is still being worked on.

zzz has posted the following update:

"I2P network reliability is currently degraded due to a novel and persistent attack. Please be patient as we work on mitigations. If you have not yet updated to the latest release 2.5.0, please do so as it provides some defences."

For i2pd users, you can try building their latest from GitHub which may help.