bionic (1) gnunet-publish.1.gz
NAME
gnunet-publish - a command line interface for publishing new content into GNUnet
SYNOPSIS
gnunet-publish [OPTIONS] FILENAME
DESCRIPTION
In order to share files with other GNUnet users, the files must first be made available to GNUnet.
GNUnet does not automatically share all files from a certain directory (however, you can do this with the
gnunet-auto-share tool). In fact, even files that are downloaded are not automatically shared.
In order to start sharing files, the files must be added either using gnunet-publish or a graphical
interface such as gnunet-fs-gtk. The command line tool gnunet-publish is more useful if many files are
supposed to be added. gnunet-publish can automatically publish batches of files, recursively publish
directories, create directories that can be browsed within GNUnet and publish file lists in a namespace.
When run on a directory, gnunet-publish will always recursively publish all of the files in the
directory.
gnunet-publish can automatically extract keywords from the files that are shared. Users that want to
download files from GNUnet use keywords to search for the appropriate content. You can disable keyword
extraction with the -D option. You can manually add keywords using the -k option. The keywords are
case-sensitive.
In addition to searching for files by keyword, GNUnet allows organizing files into directories. With
directories, the user only needs to find the directory in order to be able to download any of the files
listed in the directory. Directories can contain pointers to other directories.
With gnunet-publish, it is easy to create new directories simultaneously when adding the files. Simply
pass the name of a directory instead of a file.
Since keywords can be spammed (any user can add any content under any keyword), GNUnet supports
namespaces. A namespace is a subset of the searchspace into which only the holder of a certain pseudonym
can add content. Any GNUnet user can create any number of pseudonyms using gnunet-pseudonym. Pseudonyms
are stored in the user's GNUnet directory. While pseudonyms are locally identified with an arbitrary
string that the user selects when the pseudonym is created, the namespace is globally known only under
the hash of the public key of the pseudonym. Since only the owner of the pseudonym can add content to the
namespace, it is impossible for other users to pollute the namespace. gnunet-publish automatically
publishes the top-directory (or the only file if only one file is specified) into the namespace if a
pseudonym is specified.
It is possible to update content in GNUnet if that content was placed and obtained from a particular
namespace. Updates are only possible for content in namespaces since this is the only way to assure that
a malicious party can not supply counterfeited updates. Note that an update with GNUnet does not make
the old content unavailable, GNUnet merely allows the publisher to point users to more recent versions.
You can use the -N option to specify the future identifier of an update. When using this option, a
GNUnet client that finds the current (-t) identifier will automatically begin a search for the update
(-N) identifier. If you later publish an update under the (-N) identifier, both results will be given to
the user.
You can use automatic meta-data extraction (based on libextractor) or the command-line option -m to
specify meta-data. For the -m option you need to use the form keyword-type:value. For example, use "-m
os:Linux" to specify that the operating system is Linux. Common meta-data types are "author", "title" ,
"mimetype", "filename", "language", "subject" and "keywords". A full list can be obtained from the
extract tool using the option --list. The meta-data is used to help users in searching for files on the
network. The keywords are case-sensitive.
GNUnet supports two styles of publishing files on the network. Publishing a file means that a copy of the
file is made in the local (!) database of the node. Indexing a file means that an index is added to the
local (!) database with symbolic links to the file itself. The links will use the SHA-512 hash of the
entire file as the filename. Indexing is generally significantly more efficient and the default choice.
However, indexing only works if the indexed file can be read (using the same absolute path) by gnunet-
service-fs. If this is not the case, indexing will fail (and gnunet-publish will automatically revert to
publishing instead). Regardless of which method is used to publish the file, the file will be slowly
(depending on how often it is requested and on how much bandwidth is available) dispersed into the
network. If you publish or index a file and then leave the network, it will almost always NOT be
available anymore.
-c FILENAME, --config=FILENAME Use alternate config file (if this option is not specified, the default is
~/.config/gnunet.conf).
-D, --disable-extractor
Disable use of GNU libextractor for finding additional keywords and metadata.
-e, --extract
Print the list of keywords that will be used for each file given the current options. Do not
perform any indexing or publishing.
-h, --help
Print a brief help page with all the options.
-k KEYWORD, --key=KEYWORD
additional key to index the content with (to add multiple keys, specify multiple times). Each
additional key is case-sensitive. Can be specified multiple times. The keyword is only applied to
the top-level file or directory.
-L LOGLEVEL, --loglevel=LOGLEVEL
Change the loglevel. Possible values for LOGLEVEL are ERROR, WARNING, INFO and DEBUG.
-m TYPE:VALUE, --meta=TYPE:VALUE
For the main file (or directory), set the metadata of the given TYPE to the given VALUE. Note
that this will not add the respective VALUE to the set of keywords under which the file can be
found.
-n, --noindex
Executive summary: You probably don't need it.
Do not index, full publishing. Note that directories, RBlocks, SBlocks and IBlocks are always
published (even without this option). With this option, every block of the actual files is stored
in encrypted form in the block database of the local peer. While this adds security if the local
node is compromised (the adversary snags your machine), it is significantly less efficient
compared to on-demand encryption and is definitely not recommended for large files.
-N ID, --next=ID
Specifies the next ID of a future version of the SBlock. This option is only valid together with
the -P option. This option can be used to specify what the identifier of an updated version will
look like. Note that specifying -i and -N without -t is not allowed.
-p PRIORITY, --prio=PRIORITY
Executive summary: You probably don't need it.
Set the priority of the published content (default: 365). If the local database is full, GNUnet
will discard the content with the lowest ranking. Note that ranks change over time depending on
popularity. The default should be high enough to preserve the locally published content in favor
of content that migrates from other peers.
-P NAME, --pseudonym=NAME
For the top-level directory or file, create an SBlock that places the file into the namespace
specified by the pseudonym NAME.
-r LEVEL, --replication=LEVEL
Set the desired replication level. If CONTENT_PUSHING is set to YES, GNUnet will push each block
(for the file) LEVEL times to other peers before doing normal "random" replication of all content.
This option can be used to push some content out into the network harder. Note that pushing
content LEVEL times into the network does not guarantee that there will actually be LEVEL
replicas.
-s, --simulate-only
When this option is used, gnunet-publish will not actually publish the file but just simulate what
would be done. This can be used to compute the GNUnet URI for a file without actually sharing it.
-t ID, --this=ID
Specifies the ID of the SBlock. This option is only valid together with the -s option.
-u URI, --uri=URI
This option can be used to specify the URI of a file instead of a filename (this is the only case
where the otherwise mandatory filename argument must be omitted). Instead of publishing a file or
directory and using the corresponding URI, gnunet-publish will use this URI and perform the
selected namespace or keyword operations. This can be used to add additional keywords to a file
that has already been shared or to add files to a namespace for which the URI is known but the
content is not locally available.
-v, --version
Print the version number.
-V, --verbose
Be verbose. Using this option causes gnunet-publish to print progress information and at the end
the file identification that can be used to download the file from GNUnet.
SETTING ANONYMITY LEVEL
The -a option can be used to specify additional anonymity constraints. If set to 0, GNUnet will publish
the file non-anonymously and in fact sign the advertisement for the file using your peer's private key.
This will allow other users to download the file as fast as possible, including using non-anonymous
methods (DHT, direct transfer). If you set it to 1 (default), you use the standard anonymous routing
algorithm (which does not explicitly leak your identity). However, a powerful adversary may still be
able to perform traffic analysis (statistics) to over time infer data about your identity. You can gain
better privacy by specifying a higher level of anonymity, which increases the amount of cover traffic
your own traffic will get, at the expense of performance. Note that regardless of the anonymity level
you choose, peers that cache content in the network always use anonymity level 1.
The definition of the ANONYMITY LEVEL is the following. 0 means no anonymity is required. Otherwise a
value of 'v' means that 1 out of v bytes of "anonymous" traffic can be from the local user, leaving 'v-1'
bytes of cover traffic per byte on the wire. Thus, if GNUnet routes n bytes of messages from foreign
peers (using anonymous routing), it may originate n/(v-1) bytes of data in the same time-period. The
time-period is twice the average delay that GNUnet defers forwarded queries.
The default is 1 and this should be fine for most users. Also notice that if you choose very large
values, you may end up having no throughput at all, especially if many of your fellow GNUnet-peers all do
the same.
EXAMPLES
Basic examples
Index a file COPYING:
# gnunet-publish COPYING
Publish a file COPYING:
# gnunet-publish -n COPYING
Index a file COPYING with the keywords gpl and test:
# gnunet-publish -k gpl -k test COPYING
Index a file COPYING with description "GNU License", mime-type "text/plain" and keywords gpl and test:
# gnunet-publish -m "description:GNU License" -k gpl -k test -m "mimetype:text/plain" COPYING
Using directories
Index the files COPYING and AUTHORS with keyword test and build a directory containing the two files.
Make the directory itself available under keyword gnu and disable keyword extraction using libextractor:
# mkdir gnu
# mv COPYING AUTHORS gnu/
# gnunet-publish -K test -k gnu -D gnu/
Neatly publish an image gallery in kittendir/ and its subdirs with keyword kittens for the directory but
no keywords for the individual files or subdirs (-n). Force description for all files:
# gnunet-publish -n -m "description:Kitten collection" -k kittens kittendir/
Secure publishing with namespaces
Publish file COPYING with pseudonym RIAA-2 (-P) and with identifier gpl (-t) and no updates:
# gnunet-publish -P RIAA-2 -t gpl COPYING
Recursively index /home/ogg and build a matching directory structure. Publish the top-level directory
into the namespace under the pseudonym RIAA-2 (-P) under identifier 'MUSIC' (-t) and promise to provide
an update with identifier 'VIDEOS' (-N):
# gnunet-publish -P RIAA-2 -t MUSIC -N VIDEOS /home/ogg
Recursively publish (-n) /var/lib/mysql and build a matching directory structure, but disable the use of
libextractor to extract keywords (-n). Print the file identifiers (-V) that can be used to retrieve the
files. This will store a copy of the MySQL database in GNUnet but without adding any keywords to search
for it. Thus only people that have been told the secret file identifiers printed with the -V option can
retrieve the (secret?) files:
# gnunet-publish -nV /var/lib/mysql
Create a namespace entry 'root' in namespace MPAA-1 and announce that the next update will be called
'next':
# gnunet-publish -P MPAA-1 -t root -N next noise.mp3
Update the previous entry, do not allow any future updates:
# gnunet-publish -P MPAA-1 -t next noise_updated.mp3
FILES
~/.config/gnunet.conf GNUnet configuration file
REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs to <https://gnunet.org/bugs/> or by sending electronic mail to <gnunet-developers@gnu.org>
SEE ALSO
gnunet-auto-share(1), gnunet-fs-gtk(1), gnunet-search(1), gnunet-download(1), gnunet.conf(5), extract(1)