I2p is a network specializing in the anonymity of intranet resources; in this way it differs from the tor network, the main task of which is not internal resources, but building secure access to the Internet. By being aware of these two features, people can work much more effectively on both networks..
In i2p you can do many things: visit and create websites, forums and trading platforms, receive mail, chat and download torrents, and much more. The i2pd program is capable of working with a large number of programs and services.
It’s worth remembering that the program helps you achieve anonymity, but the anonymity itself depends on you. From your actions taken online and offline, the settings of the equipment used and operating programs. These instructions will help you set up i2pd and start working on the network.
Well, let's begin:
Download from the official website of the program
i2pd.website/releases/2.3.0/i2pd_2.3.0_win32_mingw.zip
fresh archive. Unpack the program using one of the archivers that supports zip archiving into any folder convenient for you. For example, this could be C:\i2pd\.
Launch the program. You will see a terminal window. This window tells you that i2pd is working. The window will remain open until the end of the I2P session. You can roll it up.
Open any browser that you decide to use for i2p. My recommendation is Mozilla Firefox or any other Gecko engine due to the flexibility of working settings, but you can use the browser that you personally like.
Type the following address in your browser:
127.0.0.1:7070
At this address you will find a web console with network statistics.
In the console you will see various things, such as the address of the folder with the program's working files. In the available release 2.3.0, the developers decided that this would be the path of the following content:
C:\users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\i2pd
For further settings, go to this folder. If you cannot find the AppData folder, then it has been hidden (fear not, the folder is not a system folder, it contains program files, one of which is i2pd). Brief instructions from Microsoft on how to show hidden files and folders will help you achieve your goal:
windows.microsoft.com/ru-ru/windows/show-hidden-files#show-hidden-files=windows-7
We will need two files in this folder. If they have not yet been created, please create them manually. The first file is the subscriptions file. It contains the addresses at which i2pd will update your existing list of sites with network-wide.
File name: subscriptions.txt
File contents:
http://inr.i2p/export/alive-hosts.txt
http://stats.i2p/cgi-bin/newhosts.txt
http://i2p-projekt.i2p/hosts.txt
http://i2host.i2p/cgi-bin/i2hostetag
http://no.i2p/export/alive-hosts.txt
http://rus.i2p/hosts.txt
The second file we need is very interesting - this is the tunnel file. I2PD is a virtual router, literally a box, to which you can connect through many ports. This way we can configure our programs and services on the computer to work with programs and services on the network.
Each tunnel follows the same structure.
[IRC] — this is our name, we ourselves decide what will be written here.
type=client — with this we indicate whether we will connect to a service within the network or, on the contrary, we ourselves are a service (and then the value will not be client, but server).
port=666 — port name on the router. Please note that the ports are assigned by you in the same way as the name, and may be something else, you can try changing them.
destination=irc.echelon.i2p — the name of the service we are going to interact with.
keys=irc.dat — an address with keys that are important to us for trustworthy work with the selected service. Sometimes you can use the same key file, for example, to work with the postman.i2p mail service (you will see below how this is done).
File name: tunnels.cfg
Content (as an example, we set up an IRC chat on one of the network servers, as well as receiving and sending mail on one of the main mail resources):
[IRC]
type=client
port=6668
destination=irc.echelon.i2p
keys=irc.dat
[SMTP]
type=client
port=515
destination=smtp.postman.i2p
keys=mail.dat
[POP3]
type=client
port=616
destination=pop.postman.i2p
keys=mail.dat
You can also download both files ready-made in the archive at
rghost.net/8QxX5gTf2
(The link will be working for 90 days from the last view. Reliable sources guaranteed that the creators will definitely make a suitable installer during this time, so there is no need to worry yet). It is enough to unpack them into the directory we found above. Make sure the files have the same content as above by opening them with any text editor or processor.
Save and configure both files. Please note: after changing these files you will need to restart i2pd: until this is done, the changes will not take effect!
Return to the browser window. Change proxy to
http 127.0.0.1 and port 4444 (up to version 2.3 -4446)
It’s very easy to do this using the instructions for any browser here
ru.wikihow.com/change-proxy-server settings
and feel free to visit sites, we have indicated two network search resources:
epsilon.i2p And search.i2p
# 1 When launched for the first time, i2pd will spend some time getting to know various network nodes (quite possibly several hours) before collecting enough data to run the sites (according to subscriptions.txt).
# 2 To ensure security, i2p constantly builds different tunnels from you to the resource you need. Tunnels take some time to build, which can cause delays in opening sites. Therefore, if the site does not open, refresh the page several times.
# 3 Some sites are run by people just like you. Be more lenient if the resource does not open! It is quite possible that the site you are opening is not on a powerful server, but on exactly the same computer as yours, and may not always be turned on!
More networking instructions can be found here:
i2pd.readthedocs.org/en/latest
It looks like everything is ready. So far there are not very many people using the network, so there are not very many resources. The network is primarily built by those who want to make life better for free. The i2pd developers are also completely free, among them there are many people who speak Russian, you can communicate with them on the #i2pd-ru channel through your IRC program (we have already shared a port for this with you earlier). They do everything to make it more convenient for you to use i2p and hope that users will also help make the network more interesting and better. With you, i2p will become richer, we are sure of it. Good luck using i2p!
PS If you need a tutorial to install i2pd under Debian/Ubuntu, you can find it here: habrahabr.ru/post/275643