Warning: Orbit is currently going through a big refactoring, things might be broken and instructions might be out of date. If something is not working, please open an issue and I'll make sure to fix it.
Previously known as: Anonymous Networks
Orbit is a distributed, peer-to-peer chat application built on IPFS.
All content (messages, files, metadata) are saved in IPFS as files or objects.
There's currently a server (https://github.com/haadcode/orbit-server) that tracks the head (IPFS hash) of a linked list that enables traversing the history of a channel's messages. In future this will be replaced by IPNS.
Please note that Orbit is not secure at the moment!
- Node.js v4.2.x
- npm
For development
- Following npm modules installed globally: grunt-cli, mocha, electron-prebuilt
- g++, gcc, make (for building native modules)
- python 2 (for building, some native modules need it, node-fibers perhaps?)
npm install
node index.js
Open http://localhost:3001
in your browser
Build the native app:
grunt
The builds are in dist/
. Eg. on OSX, open the application from dist/AnonymousNetworks-darwin-x64
.
Orbit uses Electron to wrap the application in native executable.
(Not supported in native builds atm)
Create a file called user.json
and add your wanted credentials:
{
"username": "bot",
"password": "password"
}
Start the program:
node index.js [--bots]
Build all:
grunt
Build for individual platforms:
grunt build_nodejs_osx
grunt build_nodejs_linux
grunt build_native_osx
grunt build_native_linux
The builds are in dist/
Build:
cd client/
npm install
grunt build
Dev:
cd client/
(npm install)
grunt serve
For UI development (webpack-dev-server in the Electron app).
Start the webpack dev server:
cd client/
grunt serve
Start Electron:
npm install electron-prebuilt
export ENV=dev
./node_modules/.bin/electron .
Make sure you don't have the node.js version running and no client open the browser.
Get https://github.com/haadcode/orbit-server and start the server, edit ./network.json
and point to appropriate url (eg. localhost:3006)
Would be happy to accept PRs! If you want to work on something, it'd be good to talk beforehand to make sure nobody else is working on it. You can reach me on Twitter @haadcode or on IRC #ipfs on Freenode.
See TODO for ideas and tasks up for grabs.