A self-replicating autonomous Tribler exit-node.
After the first instance is installed on a VPS, PlebNet will run Tribler as an exit-node and earn credits, which will be used to acquire new VPS instances for the next generation PlebNet agents. This should eventually create a community of exit-nodes for Tribler, thus creating a reliable and sufficiently large capacity for anonymous data transfer through the Tribler network
The first instance can be installed by downloading the file create-child.sh in Plebnet/plebnet/clone and call:
./create-child.sh <parameter> <value>Usage: ./create-child.sh <parameter> <value>
-h --help Shows this help message
-i --ip Ip address of the server to run install on
-p --password Root password of the server
-t --testnet Install agent in testnet mode (default 0)
-e --exitnode Run as exitnode for tribler
-conf --config (optional) VPN configuration file (.ovpn)
Requires the destination config name.
Example: -conf source_config.ovpn dest_config.ovpn
-cred --credentials (optional) VPN credentials file (.conf)
Requires the destination credentials name.
Example -cred source_credentials.conf dest_credentials.conf
-b --branch (optional) Branch of code to install from (default master)
This installs all dependencies (Tribler, Electrum, Cloudomate and ofcourse PlebNet). After installation the "plebnet setup" is called and a cron job is set up to regularly call "plebnet check".
exitnode is off by default. Using -e flag when executing create-child.sh will install PlebNet in eixtnode mode.
This check function checks whether the agent instance has acquired sufficient funds to buy a new VPS and spawn a new child instance. If this is the case, the PlebNet agent will execute the previously mentioned steps on the new server and the community has welcomed a newborn.
For running PlebNet locally, the following steps are necessary:
- All dependencies installed via the create-child.sh script, must be installed manually.
- Download PlebNet and all submodules by running the following command:
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/Tribler/PlebNet.git- Go to the main folder and execute the following command:
pip install .- To install PlebNet locally, do the same as one would for a remote server, but with your own IP address:
- note that a cron job is created in
/etc/cron.d/plebnet, which callsplebnet checkevery 5 minutes. To disable this, remove the file.
You can also install PlebNet locally by installing the dependencies from plebnet/clone/install.sh and creating the necessary folders that plebnet/clone/create-child.sh would create. After that, you need to call plebnet setup, if the flag --exitnode is provided, Tribler will be run as exitnode.
plebnet conf setup allows you to set the github issues configurations. So when a root agent is created, setting the github issuer configurations allows the agent and its children to create issues.
To set the configurations:
plebnet conf setup -gu <usernme> -gp <password> -go <repo owner> -gr <git repo> -ga 1.
note that an account and repository dedicated to git issues only needs to be created for this functionality.
The rest of plebnet commands:
usage: plebnet [-h]
{setup,check,conf,irc}
...
positional arguments:
{setup,check,conf,irc}
setup Run the setup of PlebNet
check Checks if the plebbot is able to clone
conf Allows changing the configuration files
irc Provides access to the IRC client
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
usage: plebnet setup [-h] [--testnet] [--exitnode]
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--testnet Use TBTC instead of BTC
--exitnode Run as exitnode for Tribler
usage: plebnet irc [-h] {status,start,stop,restart}
positional arguments:
{status,start,stop,restart}
status Provides information regarding the status of the IRC Client
start Starts the IRC Client
stop Stops the IRC Client
restart Restarts the IRC Client
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
All PlebNet configurations are stored inside the ~/.config/ directory.
When testing, you can modify these files and PlebNet will apply the new values.
This file contains the configuration of the agent.
[irc] channel = #plebnet123 server = irc.undernet.org port = 6667 nick_def = plebbot nick = plebbot2930 timeout = 60 [vps] host = linevast initdate = 15:06:33 02-05-2018 finaldate = 02-06-2018 [vpn] installed = 0 host = azirevpn child_prefix = child_ own_prefix = own config_name = _config.ovpn credentials_name = _credentials.conf running = 0 pid = 0 [paths] plebnet_config = ~/.plebnet.cfg plebnet_home = ~/PlebNet tribler_home = ~/PlebNet/tribler logger_path = ~/data vpn_config_path = ~/ [filenames] logger_file = plebnet.logs [pids] tribler_pid = twistd_tribler.pid tunnel_helper_pid = twistd_th.pid irc_pid = Documents/ircbot.pid [github] username = unset password = unset owner = unset repo = unset active = 0 [wallets] testnet = 0 testnet_created = 0 initiate_once = 1 password = plebnet [active] logger = 1 verbose = 1 [tribler] exitnode = 1
Each setting can be modified so that the next plebnet check is run with different settings.
This file contains the provider weights for choosing providers and the agent's identity.
{
"Self": "twosync",
"VPS": {
"linevast": 0.5,
"twosync": 0.5,
"blueangelhost": 0.5,
"undergroundprivate": 0.5
},
"tree": "plebbot2930"
}
To restrict the provider choice of PlebNet, the value of the provider should be set to a very high number (>5000).
The "tree" key indicates the current child's depth in the cluster starting from its root. The first value is the root node's IRC nickname (due to its semi uniqueness).
Some tree examples:
plebbot2930 # root node, it is the first of its inheritance tree
plebbot2930.0 # this is the first child of the root node (child index 0)
plebbot2930.1 # second child of root node
plebbot2930.0.0 # second child of the first child (first grandchild)
plebbot2930.0.5 # fifth grandchildUsing this, each node's origin can be identified in IRC (and in the PlebNet VISION tool).
This file contains the agent's transactions and is used to keep track of servers to be installed.
{
"last_offer_date": 1530783430.253793,
"transactions": [
"391a8ebeb10041c02585941357889c8a7d0531cbdf643540bd4c0cbd2272909d"
],
"expiration_date": 1533291353.528893,
"last_offer": {
"BTC": 0.0014060814961627155,
"MB": 930
},
"installed": [],
"child_index": 1,
"chosen_provider": [
"linevast",
0,
0.0014401424067158812
],
"bought": [
[
"linevast",
"296b20d6885787054c3f94a4d8e87b39b1289c991c06ec419d2774a5358e8c9a",
7
]
]
"excluded_providers": []
}
In this example, Linevast was the purchased server to be installed when its ready. The bought list contains servers the agents needs to install. After installing, the entry is removed from bought and put in installed.
IRC and PlebNet VISION (tools/vision) can be used to check how the network and agents are doing. You can also check the agent on the server itself. When Tribler is running, its HTTP API on port 8085 can be queried for checking status, among other things (see plebnet/controllers/). To kill Tribler, kill twistd processes (although the cron job will start it again on the next iteration if it's not removed).
Use curl to use the HTTP API:
curl http://localhost:8085/settings
curl http://localhost:8085/wallets
Shows the created wallets, Bitcoins can be sent to this address to test the agent's purchasing and installing abilities.
You can find some useful market requests in the plebnet/controllers/market_controller.py file.
curl http://localhost:8085/state Shows the state of Tribler and exceptions.
VPN is currently only possible on LineVast. In Cloudomate, the functionalities to enable TUN/TAP via the control panel was added. The agent checks for the VPN configurations by searching for files: own_config.ovpn and own_credentials.conf, these can be initialized from create-child.sh. When the VPN is installed, ssh access to the server is terminated, which means that you can't access it from its normal IP. Use the client panel by logging in with the credentials (which should be mailed to the bot's main shared email address) and use the serial console to logon to the server.
To check if a machine suports vpn: cat /dev/net/tun, the output should read 'File desciptor in bad state'. If the output reads 'No such file or directory', TUN/TAP should be enabled from the control panel (which for Linevast happens automatically through Cloudomate).