Simulate a local mixnet along with a chat app to publish using mix. This is helpful to test any changes while development. It includes scripts that run a 4 node mixnet along with a lightpush service node(without mix) that can be used to test quickly.

Simulation Details

Note that before running the simulation both wakunode2 and chat2mix have to be built.

cd <repo-root-dir>
make wakunode2
make chat2mix

Simulation includes scripts for:

a 4 waku-node mixnet where node1 is bootstrap node for the other 3 nodes.
scripts to run chat app that publishes using lightpush protocol over the mixnet

Usage

Start the service node with below command, which acts as bootstrap node for all other mix nodes.

./run_lp_service_node.sh

To run the nodes for mixnet run the 4 node scripts in different terminals as below.

./run_mix_node1.sh

Look for following 2 log lines to ensure node ran successfully and has also mounted mix protocol.

INF 2025-08-01 14:51:05.445+05:30 mounting mix protocol                      topics="waku node" tid=39996871 file=waku_node.nim:231 nodeId="(listenAddresses: @[\"/ip4/127.0.0.1/tcp/60001/p2p/16Uiu2HAmPiEs2ozjjJF2iN2Pe2FYeMC9w4caRHKYdLdAfjgbWM6o\"], enrUri: \"enr:-NC4QKYtas8STkenlqBTJ3a1TTLzJA2DsGGbFlnxem9aSM2IXm-CSVZULdk2467bAyFnepnt8KP_QlfDzdaMXd_zqtwBgmlkgnY0gmlwhH8AAAGHbWl4LWtleaCdCc5iT3bo9gYmXtucyit96bQXcqbXhL3a-S_6j7p9LIptdWx0aWFkZHJzgIJyc4UAAgEAAIlzZWNwMjU2azGhA6RFtVJVBh0SYOoP8xrgnXSlpiFARmQkF9d8Rn4fSeiog3RjcILqYYN1ZHCCIymFd2FrdTIt\")"

INF 2025-08-01 14:49:23.467+05:30 Node setup complete                        topics="wakunode main" tid=39994244 file=wakunode2.nim:104

Once all the 4 nodes are up without any issues, run the script to start the chat application.

./run_chat_app.sh

Enter a nickname to be used.

pubsub topic is: /waku/2/rs/2/0
Choose a nickname >>

Once you see below log, it means the app is ready for publishing messages over the mixnet.

Welcome, test!
Listening on
 /ip4/192.168.68.64/tcp/60000/p2p/16Uiu2HAkxDGqix1ifY3wF1ZzojQWRAQEdKP75wn1LJMfoHhfHz57
ready to publish messages now

Follow similar instructions to run second instance of chat app. Once both the apps run successfully, send a message and check if it is received by the other app.

You can exit the chat apps by entering /exit as below

>> /exit
quitting...