Bison Relay (BR) is a suite of programs to enable private and secure communications between any number of parties.
The server is oblivious to the contents of individual messages (i.e. all messages are E2E encrypted) and Lightning Network payments are required in order to send and receive messages.
Building the software in this repository requires Go version 1.18+. Proceed with the standard method for building and installing Go binaries.
The following assumes there is a suitable version of the Go toolset installed.
The basic CLI client is available in the brclient package. It can be installed
and ran by with the following commands in a checked out copy of this repository:
$ go install ./brclient
brclient
If this is the first time the client is being executed, it will by default
go through the initial setup wizard and will create a file named
~/.brclient/brclient.conf to hold the config.
During the setup wizard, the user will be asked to create a
dcrlnd wallet if it can't provide connection
details to one. In this case, brclient will run an embedded LN wallet,
including with the on-chain services necessary to fully operate it. The client
will not be usable until the initial sync completes and the LN wallet is fully
operational.
Note that in order to send and receive messages with other users, the associated LN wallet (either the embedded or an external one) MUST be actively managed by the user, including by having active channels and enough outbound bandwidth to be able to make the payments required by the server.
The entire list of supported commands can be found by typing /help after the
client is fully setup. Further information about a command be obtained by typing
/help <command>.
/ln <subcommand>: perform operations in the underlying LN wallet. Including:/ln info: show info about the current LN wallet./ln newaddress: generate a deposit address for DCR that can be used to fund the on-chain wallet operations./ln openchannel: open an outbound channel to a target peer./ln requestrecv: request inbound capacity by having a remote node open a channel back to the local node (requires paying the remote node).
/invite <filename>: generate an "invitation" file that can be sent to another user to start communicating with them./add <filename>: accept the invitation to communicate with a user./msg <user> <message>send a private message to a previously known user.
A private server can be executed by running:
$ go install ./brserver
$ brserver
The sample config file for a server install is available in the brserver.conf file in this repository.
More information about the internal architecture of bison relay can be found in the /doc subdir.
BR has not been audited yet. Use wisely.
BR is licensed under the copyfree ISC License.