Add concrete steps in doc/cjdns.md to easily find a friend

jonatack commented at 7:20 pm on March 29, 2022: member

and improve the informational links. CJDNS functions with a friend-of-a-friend topology and a key hurdle to getting started is to find a public peer and set up an outbound connection to it. This update makes doing it much easier for people getting started.

Credit to Vasil Dimov for an IRC suggestion in October 2021 and to stickies-v for IRC discussions this week and the testing guide that led me to redo these steps, provide feedback at #24706 and refine the added documentation here.

DrahtBot added the label Docs on Mar 29, 2022

in doc/cjdns.md:48 in 0a7bc97da0 outdated

49+git clone https://github.com/hyperboria/peers hyperboria-peers
50+cd hyperboria-peers
51+./testAvailable.py
52+```
53+
54+and to choose a friend from among the peers returned in the

stickies-v commented at 10:04 am on March 30, 2022:

I think it would be prudent to recommend adding a few, say, 3-5 friends instead of just one?

jonatack commented at 12:11 pm on March 30, 2022:

Done

in doc/cjdns.md:52 in 0a7bc97da0 outdated

53+
54+and to choose a friend from among the peers returned in the
55+`hyperboria-peers/<continent/<country>/<city>` directories.
56+
57+You can then copy/paste its credentials into the relevant IPv4 or IPv6
58+"connectTo" JSON object in the `cjdroute.conf` file in your CJDNS directory and

stickies-v commented at 10:11 am on March 30, 2022:

Maybe this is platform specific, but I’m not sure there always is a “CJDNS directory”? Perhaps you could phrase it as “in the cjdroute.conf file you created in the setup phase”?

jonatack commented at 12:10 pm on March 30, 2022:

Done

in doc/cjdns.md:49 in 0a7bc97da0 outdated

50+cd hyperboria-peers
51+./testAvailable.py
52+```
53+
54+and to choose a friend from among the peers returned in the
55+`hyperboria-peers/<continent/<country>/<city>` directories.

stickies-v commented at 10:16 am on March 30, 2022:

Phrasing is slightly ambiguous I think. Maybe you could rephrase that the script prints the location of the credentials and the pinging result, and then user can go fetch the credentials from that location and copy/paste into config? Just highlights a bit more the user action required to actually go into the folders based on script output.

jonatack commented at 12:10 pm on March 30, 2022:

Done

stickies-v commented at 10:22 am on March 30, 2022: member

Looks good, I like the additional info. Even though there’s some information duplication, including the friend finding process should make things a lot easier for new users.

Left a few comments, but beyond that pretty much good to go for me.

jonatack force-pushed on Mar 30, 2022

jonatack commented at 12:13 pm on March 30, 2022: member

Thank you for the feedback, @stickies-v, updated per git diff 0a7bc97 0156505

in doc/cjdns.md:53 in 0156505088 outdated

54+For each peer, the `./testAvailable.py` script prints the filename of the peer's
55+credentials followed by the ping result.
56+
57+Choose one or several peers, copy their credentials from their respective files,
58+paste them into the relevant IPv4 or IPv6 "connectTo" JSON object in the
59+`cjdroute.conf` you created in step ["1. Generate a new configuration

stickies-v commented at 1:15 pm on March 30, 2022:

nit: missing word “file” after cjdroute.conf

jonatack commented at 2:47 pm on March 30, 2022:

thanks, added

jonatack force-pushed on Mar 30, 2022

stickies-v approved

stickies-v commented at 3:11 pm on March 30, 2022: member

ACK 3c2f7d8

brunoerg approved

brunoerg commented at 11:05 pm on March 30, 2022: member

ACK 3c2f7d883531a7d21e53446b25e53909226f67a4

I followed it when testing v23 and the steps added here worked fine and was helpful.

fanquake referenced this in commit c243e08351 on Mar 31, 2022

in doc/cjdns.md:27 in 3c2f7d8835 outdated

23@@ -23,17 +24,37 @@ somewhat centralized. I2P connections have a source address and I2P is slow.
24 CJDNS is fast but does not hide the sender and the recipient from intermediate
25 routers.
26 
27-## Installing CJDNS and connecting to the network
28+## Installing CJDNS and finding a friend to connect to the network

laanwj commented at 11:35 am on April 1, 2022:

Should it still be called a friend if it’s simply a random active public peer selected from a list? :smile:

jonatack commented at 11:49 am on April 1, 2022:

Kind of like a dating app? :smile:

jonatack commented at 2:12 pm on April 1, 2022:

You’re right, though, “peer” would be better here, done.

laanwj commented at 1:05 pm on April 1, 2022: member

ACK 3c2f7d883531a7d21e53446b25e53909226f67a4

Add concrete steps in doc/cjdns.md to easily find a friend 19538dd41e

Add and improve informational links in doc/cjdns.md 6a02355ae9

jonatack force-pushed on Apr 1, 2022

jonatack commented at 2:14 pm on April 1, 2022: member

Thanks for the reviews and feedback; updated with the following change.

 0diff --git a/doc/cjdns.md b/doc/cjdns.md
 1index e0e31ef130..b69564729f 100644
 2--- a/doc/cjdns.md
 3+++ b/doc/cjdns.md
 4@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ somewhat centralized. I2P connections have a source address and I2P is slow.
 5 CJDNS is fast but does not hide the sender and the recipient from intermediate
 6 routers.
 7 
 8-## Installing CJDNS and finding a friend to connect to the network
 9+## Installing CJDNS and finding a peer to connect to the network
10 
11 To install and set up CJDNS, follow the instructions at
12 https://github.com/cjdelisle/cjdns#how-to-install-cjdns.

stickies-v approved

stickies-v commented at 2:48 pm on April 1, 2022: member

re-ACK 6a02355 even though I wasn’t opposed to the “friend” terminology since it’s the language CJDNS seems to use to denominate the peers you connect to directly in general. Not worth bikeshedding over though.

dunxen commented at 3:07 pm on April 1, 2022: contributor

ACK 6a02355

dunxen approved

lsilva01 approved

lsilva01 commented at 11:07 pm on April 1, 2022: contributor

Strong ACK 6a02355

I skipped this step when setting up the CJDNS for the first time. So I think it’s good to reinforce this in the documentation.

laanwj merged this on Apr 5, 2022

laanwj closed this on Apr 5, 2022

jonatack deleted the branch on Apr 5, 2022

sidhujag referenced this in commit d5fe786c60 on Apr 5, 2022

DrahtBot locked this on Apr 5, 2023

Add concrete steps in doc/cjdns.md to easily find a friend #24710