Decentralized, peer-to-peer and secure overlay networks.
WireHub (in a shell, wh) builds decentralized, peer-to-peer and secure overlay networks. It is small (<10kloc and="" be="" easily="" extendable.="" p="" simple-to-use="" tends="" to="">
⚠️ Not ready for production! This is still a work-in-progress. It still requires some work to be clean and secure. The current code is provided for testing only.
It is built upon WireGuard tunnels and provides distributed peer discovery & routing capabilities, NAT trasversal, extendable name resolving, ...
Features
- Single file network description: a configuration of a network is a list of the public key, private IPs and hostnames for each node.
- Decentralized peer discovery: WireHub peers form a authentified Kademilia DHT network, which is the by-default discovery mechanism to find new peers. Sybil attack is mitigated with a configurable Proof-of-Work parameter (see
workbits); - Peer-to-peer and relayed communication: WireHub goes through NATs, using UPnP IGD to map new ports on compatible routers, or using UDP Hole Punching techniques. If a P2P communication cannot be established, network traffic is relayed through the DHT.
Getting started
Quickstart with Docker
Run a minimal environment with WireHub installed.
docker run -it --cap-add NET_ADMIN wirehub/wh /bin/sh
Run a testing environment with auto-completion enabled, testing scripts and debug tools installed, ...
docker run -it --cap-add NET_ADMIN wirehub/sandbox /bin/bash
If you want to compile the Docker images from source,
git clone --recursive https://github.com/gawen/wirehub
cd wirehub
make docker docker-sandbox
A simple network with two nodes
First, generate two keys, one for each node.
$ wh genkey | tee node_a.sk | wh pubkey | tee node_a.k
zW-1lBeQ7IkT6NW6hL_NsV4eOPOwJi_rt1vO-omOEmQ
$ wh genkey | tee node_b.sk | wh pubkey | tee node_b.k
g878Bf9ZDc4IzFSUhWFTO1VYFVmHD5XfvEsVn83Dsho
The private keys are stored in the
.sk files. The public keys are stored in the .k files.
Generate a WireHub configuration
echo "name tutorial
subnet 10.0.42.0/24
boot P17zMwXJFbBdJEn05RFIMADw9TX5_m2xgf31OgNKX3w bootstrap.wirehub.io
trust node_a `cat node_a.k`
trust node_b `cat node_b.k`" > config
File
config should be like this:name tutorial # name of network
subnet 10.0.42.0/24 # private subnetwork
# one DHT bootstrap node
boot P17zMwXJFbBdJEn05RFIMADw9TX5_m2xgf31OgNKX3w bootstrap.wirehub.io
# two nodes, node_a & node_b
trust node_a zW-1lBeQ7IkT6NW6hL_NsV4eOPOwJi_rt1vO-omOEmQ
trust node_b g878Bf9ZDc4IzFSUhWFTO1VYFVmHD5XfvEsVn83Dsho
To start the network, run on
node_a ...wh up ./config private-key ./node_a.sk
... and on
node_b ...wh up ./config private-key ./node_b.sk
After some time, each node should be able to ping themselves.
# ping node_b
PING 10.0.42.3 (10.0.42.3): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 10.0.42.2: seq=0 ttl=64 time=106.801 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.42.2: seq=1 ttl=64 time=49.778 ms
You can check the overlay network status
# wh
interface wh-zW-1lBeQ7, network tutorial, node node_a
public key: zW-1lBeQ7IkT6NW6hL_NsV4eOPOwJi_rt1vO-omOEmQ
peers
node_b
While the daemon is running, you can modify the network configuration and reload it.
# echo "trust node_c 9OtorxsAqPqZkJ-fAYNRAPr9piMWKMLnGqOVVpMUvXY" >> ./config
# wh reload wh-zW-1lBeQ7
You may stop the WireHub node as so:
wh down wh-zW-1lBeQ7
Advise: use auto-completion to avoid writing wirehub interface, peer's keys or other arguments. For example,
# wh do
wh down
wh down wh-zW-1lBeQ7
A use-case with WireHub: zero-netcat
Zero Netcat, or
0nc, is a modified version of Netcat which runs over WireHub. It has the nice property to be secure, peer-to-peer and agnostic of the network topology.
On one node, run the WireHub sandbox.
$ docker run -it --cap-add NET_ADMIN wirehub/sandbox /bin/bash
Run
0nc.node_a # 0nc.lua
znc invitation: ncuJonSJOS1DlFtb3HdgDJczPilrs0oPR9pwRpa_7WXwO0z-xioe_g9cdcMZkpV2b5lN7j3eLILjplBffvjdcw
Copy the znc invitation. Run another WireHub sandbox, call
0nc with the invitation as argument.node_b # 0nc.lua ncuJonSJOS1DlFtb3HdgDJczPilrs0oPR9pwRpa_7WXwO0z-xioe_g9cdcMZkpV2b5lN7j3eLILjplBffvjdcw
STDIN of node_a is now pipe-d into STDOUT of node_b, and vice-versa.Start a public node
The minimal configuration for a node is something like this,
name public
workbit 8
boot P17zMwXJFbBdJEn05RFIMADw9TX5_m2xgf31OgNKX3w bootstrap.wirehub.io
Only a bootstrap node is listed, but no trusted nodes. A node with this configuration will join the WireHub DHT and only provide support for discovery peers and relaying data (which is a good thing for the DHT's health).
Start a public node,
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gawen/wirehub/master/config/public > ./config
wh up ./config
Check the neighbour peers in the DHT,
# wh show wh-gOVQwCSUxK all
interface wh-gOVQwCSUxK, network public, node <>
public key: gOVQwCSUxKUhUrkUSF0aDvssDfWVrrnm47ZMp5GJtDg
peers
◒ BB_O_4Qxzw: 1.2.3.4:55329 (bucket:1)
◒ C4mfi1ltU9: 1.2.3.4:46276 (bucket:1)
◒ Dng_TaMHei: 1.2.3.4:6465 (bucket:1)
◒ GjIX1RdmDj: 1.2.3.4:53850 (bucket:1)
◒ G9qk6znNL5: 1.2.3.4:4523 (bucket:1)
◒ J_RXehMJiw: 1.2.3.4:13962 (bucket:1)
◒ PgjYqFfsyS: 1.2.3.4:39582 (bucket:1)
● P17zMwXJFb: 51.15.227.165:62096 (bucket:1)
[...]
Dependencies
Requirements
- Linux or Docker
- WireGuard
Current limitations
- Untrusted cryptography: even if WireHub basics cryptographic routines are based on the trusted Libsodium, the WireHub cryptographic architecture has not been audited yet. If you're interested to contribute on this part, help is very welcome!
- Automatic testing: a lot of work needs to be done to make real automatic testing possible with WireHub. Current efforts are on branch
dev-testbedandmicronet. - Still panic: still quite rough to use. Do not expect the daemon to be stable;
- Poor documentation: WireHub was a side project and still lacks documentation.
- For a relayed peer, only one relay is used: the traffic is not distributed yet between several relays, which makes a single point of failure of WireHub relay mechanisms;
- Only IPv4 private addresses: implemeting IPv6 private addresses requires some additional work;
- and related to WireGuard, which is still under active development.
Future
- Zero-configuration IP6 networking with IPv6 ORCHID addresses, to automatically allocate each peer a default private IP (see
wh orchid);
Overall source code architecture
WireHub's source code is stored in
src/. wh.lua is the main Lua module to import WireHub's engine.
The source code of the CLI tool
wh is stored in src/tools/. Its entry point is src/tools/cli.lua.
The core of WireHub is written in C and stored in
src/core/. It is a native Lua module called whcore, defined in src/core/whcorelib.c.
Please refer to the documentation in each files for more info.
