libp2p-chat

README

Libp2p-Chat

Peer to peer chatting application build on top of Libp2p. The chatting app comes with two default configs - config.initiator.json and config.responder.json which are used by libp2p to bootstrap initiator and responder nodes.

This chatting application works as long as the initiator can dial the dialAddrs in its relevant config.

What the initiator and responder nodes first run, the relevant private keys are generated and stored in ~/.libp2p-chat/initiator/libp2p.prv and ~/.libp2p-chat/responder/libp2p.prv. On subsequent runs, these keys are reused for bootstrapping the node. The directory and private key name for storing the generated private keys can be configured via privateKey.dir and privateKey.fileName in relevant config files.

The current state of the application doesn't support node discovery. Feel free to add peer discovery to the application.

Prerequisites

• Go (version 1.22 or higher)
• Go mod feature turned on

Building

To build the project simply execute

# Builds the Go module
$ go build

# Adds the chatting app to Path
$ mv libp2p-chat /usr/local/bin

Running the Chat Application

Start Responder (Bob) Node

• Start responder (Bob's node) by executing the below command

# The configFile switch configures the path to your responder config file 
$ libp2p-chat -configFile=<path-to-config-responder-json>

After the Bob's node is bootstrapped, you should see something like this

=================================
Hello Bob!
Welcome to Chatting Application
Instructions: Type a message and press enter to send it
=================================
Bob>

Start Initiator (Alice) Node

Start initiator (Alice's node) by executing the below command

# The configFile switch configures the path to your initiator config file 
$ libp2p-chat -configFile=<path-to-config-initiator-json>

After the Alice's node is bootstrapped, you should see something like this

=================================
Hello Alice!
Welcome to Chatting Application
Instructions: Type a message and press enter to send it
=================================
Alice>

Make sure to update the peerId of remote peer's multiaddress configured in dialAddrs after initiator node spits out its PeerId

Package Info

The application consists of the following packages

• chat - Implements the chat application protocol
• log - Enables logs with colors
• config - Reads configuration related to the Node and provides two default configs config.initiator.json and config.responder.json
• network - Bootstraps the responder or initiator node with config read by config package and wires the chat application protocol handlers to the network stream after initial protocol negotiation done by libp2p