join-the-dht-cult.md

Hyperswarm DHT setup

Checking your network for P2Pness

Running a node

Running a dht node is as simple as installing the DHT cli.

npm i -g @hyperswarm/cli

Then to run the node do:

hyperswarm-dht

NOTE: If the above prints a warning that your network is NOT holepunchable, you might wanna look into opening port 49737.

That's it! You probably run to run the above command as a daemon so it get's decent uptime.

The DHT node will store IPs and ports from other users through an udp interface. The network is quite redundant so no worries if you shutdown your node or if it crashes :) It also shouldn't consume too much bandwidth as it's just simple small udp messages that exchanged when peers do discovery.

Stay in touch

We might upgrade the command set in the future so it's a good idea to hang in #dat on freenode so we can share updates and you can give us feedback.

Leaving a comment here that you are running a node for a bit will help us in this early phase of the rollout also so we can stay in touch :)

Maybe this is helpful to others, I am running following setup on an ubuntu linux:

(note: I am not a linux or server pro, but this seems to work; improvement suggestions warmly welcome)

1. Make sure that only the required ports are open: (Port 49737 is used by the hyperswarm bootstrap nodes )

   sudo ufw allow 22
   sudo ufw allow 49737
   sudo ufw enable

   Note: Forgetting port 22 may disable the ssh connection 😅

2. Add npm build dependencies:

   sudo apt-get install libtool autoconf g++

3. Install @hyperswarm/cli globally with a sudo user.

   sudo npm i -g @hyperswarm/cli

4. Create a dedicated hyperswarm user that doesn't have sudo privileges.

   sudo adduser hyperswarm

5. Add the dht as a service to run as hyperswarm user:

   sudo npx add-to-systemd hyperswarm-dht \
      -u hyperswarm \
      -c "/home/hyperswarm" \
      -e PATH="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin" \
      "$(which hyperswarm-dht) --quiet --port 49737"

   Note: this works without specifying a port - it will use a random port - but for the firewall a static port should be better.

6. Start the service:

   sudo systemctl start hyperswarm-dht.service

7. See the status of the service:

   sudo systemctl status hyperswarm-dht --lines 20

   The output on my terminal looks like

   ● hyperswarm-dht.service
      Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/hyperswarm-dht.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
      Active: active (running) since Tue 2020-04-21 13:20:40 JST; 27s ago
    Main PID: 883 (node)
      CGroup: /system.slice/hyperswarm-dht.service
              └─883 node /usr/bin/hyperswarm-dht --port=49737 --quiet
   
   Apr 21 13:20:40 os3-360-13230 systemd[1]: Started hyperswarm-dht.service.
   Apr 21 13:20:40 os3-360-13230 hyperswarm-dht[883]: DHT version 3.6.2
   Apr 21 13:20:40 os3-360-13230 hyperswarm-dht[883]:   id=6ee604068aa7c2396384f5841032ac3f40af7cc1e5893a8f715e7160e57eff78
   Apr 21 13:20:40 os3-360-13230 hyperswarm-dht[883]:   id-file=/tmp/dht-rpc-id
   Apr 21 13:20:40 os3-360-13230 hyperswarm-dht[883]:   port=49737
   Apr 21 13:20:40 os3-360-13230 hyperswarm-dht[883]:   address=0.0.0.0
   Apr 21 13:20:40 os3-360-13230 hyperswarm-dht[883]:   adaptive=true
   Apr 21 13:20:40 os3-360-13230 hyperswarm-dht[883]:   bootstrap=(default)
   Apr 21 13:20:40 os3-360-13230 hyperswarm-dht[883]:   verbose=false
   Apr 21 13:20:40 os3-360-13230 hyperswarm-dht[883]: Running in adaptive mode. Will go persistent once running for ~30 min and holepunchable
   Apr 21 13:20:40 os3-360-13230 hyperswarm-dht[883]: Listening on 0.0.0.0:49737 (udp,IPv4)
   Apr 21 13:20:41 os3-360-13230 hyperswarm-dht[883]: Network appears holepunchable (remote address is 133.167.44.234:49737)
   Apr 21 13:20:48 os3-360-13230 hyperswarm-dht[883]: DHT node fully bootstrapped
   

   with 6ee604068aa7c2396384f5841032ac3f40af7cc1e5893a8f715 being my current node id.

Up-/downgrading

To up-/downgrade the hyperswarm you need to...

1. Install the version intended for use: sudo npm i -g @hyperswarm/cli@<version>
2. Restart the service sudo systemctl restart hyperswarm-dht

@martinheidegger thanks! i'm in the process of making a website for the swarm etc. will copy that onto there as well.

I also updated the gist to make use of the new cli you helped make.

Happy to be useful 😺

hi there , i am node id: 2f061d6437d6b9e35c1e99246e1e2d216860bce01a7adc47ab826c85b786d2a5

my new id=d25df0e0420aefd3b7142d892d0bf38f09a7575504aee700fac313a873dc23f8

Running 3.6.2 at dht.12core.net

Running 3.6.3 at dht.12core.net with node ID: bdb7e9cae4a20000a00b09a9db7852d5db84e0587ada752ddef9982e469b2289

cc @bcomnes