Samizdat is pulling itself by its bootstraps! https://proxy.hubfederation.com/~samizdat
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In these troubling times, some people might find it hard to publish content to the web. Samizdat is a P2P network for sharing and publishing content without the need of a server, most of which are run by them. Self-publish your content today with Samizdat!
This is still a proof of concept implementation. So three caveats are in place:
- Don't rely on the availability of the network or of your content; have alternatives in place.
- Expect frequent breaking changes.
- Expect vulnerabilities. Do not use the network for sensitive content yet.
How to make this warning disappear? Contribute! I am but one humble human being.
Samizdat (from a Russian term meaning "self-publishing") aims to provide a decentralized internet application that enables one to do the following:
-
Be able to allow one to serve a public, static site without the need for a hosting service. The content is to be hosted in the person's own device or in caches from people who visit the site. (READY)
-
Provide a human-friendly identifier for resources contained in this network, i.e., a URL scheme. This URL is to be content-addressed, not location-addressed. (IN CONSTRUCTION)
-
Oblivious hosting: only the device serving the content and the device asking for the content can extract any information about the content or its metadata. (BY DESIGN)
-
Do all this easily and conveniently. Graphical interfaces, mobile apps and amenities are welcome. (IN CONSTRUCTION)
We are not quite there yet...
These are important issues where help is most appreciated:
- Android support: make Samizdat Node run on Android.
- Why it matters: this is an end-user product and most end-users are on mobile.
- Why it's hard: I'm bored by Android development. (Linux, macOS and Windows are
already supported via
samizdat-up.)
The project uses a hybrid peer-to-peer network, where nodes connect to hubs. The nodes are the consumers and producers of content; all content transmission is handled by the nodes. The hubs are used for routing, discovery and NAT traversal. One node can connect to many hubs simultaneously so that content can diffuse through different tribes with time.
For a deeper tour of the crates and concepts, see docs/architecture.md.
The recommended path is the samizdat-up bootstrap installer, which downloads the
latest release from the network itself and then installs the node, hub or proxy as
a system service. On Linux and macOS:
curl -fsSL https://proxy.hubfederation.com/~get-samizdat/latest/install.sh | sudo bash
sudo samizdat-up install node
On Windows, download samizdat-up.exe from the same location and run
samizdat-up install node from an elevated shell. See
docs/operations.md for the testbed runbook.
In the installation, the samizdat cli tool is included. You can run samizdat init to create a new Samizdat project in your current directory. This will create a manifest file Samizdat.toml and a private manifest .Samizdat.priv, which will be added to your .gitignore. This file contains private credentials that you have to backup elsewhere dearly.
In your local node, this will also create a new series, your very own microblog/directory in the Samizdat Network. To refresh the contents of your series, just do samizdat commit (or even better, samizdat watch for continuous refresh-on-save). Samizdat will run a build script that you supply in Samizdat.toml. Your content will be available in the URL:
http://localhost:4510/~<series name>/path/to/stuff
Despite the localhost, this is a public URL. You can share it with friends that
have Samizdat installed and they will be able to access it.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, however! Check out more under docs/ in this repository.
common: Rust lib defining common code shared by other Samizdat crates. You will find here RPC definitions, Merkle tree implementation, etc...hub: the Samizdat Hub crate.node: the Samizdat Node crate.cli: the Samizdat CLI crate.proxy: a proxy to bridge a Samizdat Node to the open Web, used in https://proxy.hubfederation.com.samizdat-up: cross-platform installer / service manager (systemd, launchd, Windows SCM).js: the SamizdatJS library, which enables Web applications to interface with the local Samizdat node.install: installation artifacts for end users on different platforms.simulate-net: spawn your own network locally. Necessary for integration tests.blockchain: smart contracts for the Samizdat identity.terraform: infrastructure-as-code for the public testbed.docs: architecture, threat model, conventions and operations runbook.
All code under the Samizdat Project is Free Software and is licensed to any individual or organization under the AGPLv3 license. You are free to run, study, alter and redistribute the software as you wish, as long as you abide by the terms of the aforementioned license.
Copyright 2021-2026 Tokahuke
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. The text of this license can be found in the license file in this repository.