6.7 KiB
Building a local network of spam-protected chat2 clients
This document is a tutorial on how to locally set up a small network of chat2 clients in a spam-protected mode using the waku-RLN-Relay protocol.
In the provided test scenario, you will set up three chat2 clients.
For ease of explanation, we will refer to them as Alice, Bob, and Carol.
Bob and Carol are directly connected to Alice so that their message will be routed via Alice.
In this setting, if Bob or Carol attempts to spam the network by violating the message rate limit then Alice will detect their spamming activity, and does not relay the spam messages.
The message rate is one per epoch.
At the time of this tutorial, the epoch duration is set to 10 seconds.
You can inspect its current value by checking the following constant variable in the nim-waku codebase.
Set up
Build chat2
First, build chat2
make chat2
Create a local network of chat2 clients
Next, set up the following three chat2 clients in order.
As Alice is going to be the only connection point between Bob and Carol, you need to set it up first before Bob and Carol.
Alice setup:
Run the following command to set up the first chat2 client. In this command, the rln-relay flag is set to true to enable RLN-Relay protocol for the spam protection.
The rln-relay-membership-index is used to pick one RLN key out of the 100 available hardcoded RLN keys.
We use the first RLN key of the list for Alice i.e., --rln-relay-membership-index:1.
./build/chat2 --staticnode:/ip4/127.0.0.1/tcp/60010/p2p/16Uiu2HAmKdCdP89q6CwLc6PeFDJnVR1EmM7fTgtphHiacSNBnuAz --content-topic:/toy-chat/3/mingde/proto --ports-shift=1 --fleet:none --nodekey=f157b19b13e9ee818acfc9d3d7eec6b81f70c0a978dec19def261172acbe26e6 --rln-relay:true --rln-relay-membership-index:1
Next, you will be prompted with a message to choose a nickname, set it to Alice:
Choose a nickname >> Alice
Wait for the chat prompt >> to appear.
Now your first chat2 client is ready.
Bob setup:
Set up the second chat2 client using the command below. Choose Bob as the nickname.
./build/chat2 --staticnode:/ip4/127.0.0.1/tcp/60001/p2p/16Uiu2HAkyTos6LeGrj1YJyA3WYzp9qKQGCsxbtvyoBRHSu9PCrQZ --content-topic:/toy-chat/3/mingde/proto --ports-shift=2 --fleet:none --nodekey=9ab635854ffe8fed32b17d7ef38e0b2f354ca1f3283b7f78fb77227004d2cbe6 --rln-relay:true --rln-relay-membership-index:2
Choose a nickname >> Bob
Carol setup:
Run the following command to set up the third chat2 client, and choose Carol as the nickname.
./build/chat2 --staticnode:/ip4/127.0.0.1/tcp/60001/p2p/16Uiu2HAkyTos6LeGrj1YJyA3WYzp9qKQGCsxbtvyoBRHSu9PCrQZ --content-topic:/toy-chat/3/mingde/proto --ports-shift=3 --fleet:none --nodekey=0aa89d7f27300c9fb4e119acc225c8873a3bf96bbb4c82045c94934bcc6a6af8 --rln-relay:true --rln-relay-membership-index:3
Choose a nickname >> Carol
Run the test
Now that the network is formed, you can start chatting.
For a better illustration of spam protection, use Bob and Carol clients for chatting and let Alice act only as a router.
Once you type a chat line and hit enter, you will see a message that indicates the epoch at which the message is sent e.g.,
>> Hi!
--rln epoch: 164495684
<Feb 15, 12:27> Bob: Hi!
The numerical value 164495684 indicates the epoch of the message Hi!.
You will see a different value than 164495684 on your screen.
If two messages sent by the same chat2 client happen to have the same RLN epoch value, then one of them will be detected as spam and won't be routed (by Alice in this test setting).
At the time of this tutorial, the epoch duration is set to 10 seconds.
Thus, if you send two messages less than 10 seconds apart, they are likely to get the same rln epoch values.
After sending a chat message, you may experience some delay before the next chat prompt appears. The reason is that under the hood a zero-knowledge proof is being generated and attached to your message.
Once you are done with the test, make sure you close all the chat2 clients by typing /exit command.
>> /exit
quitting...
Sample test output
In the following sample test, Bob sends three messages namely, message1, message2, and message3.
The two messages message2 and message3 have identical RLN epoch value of 164504930, so, one of them will be discarded by Alice as a spam message.
You can check this fact by looking at the Alice console, where A spam message is found and discarded : <Feb 16, 14:08> Bob: message3 is presented.
Alice does not relay message3 further, hence Carol never receives it.
Bob
./build/chat2 --staticnode:/ip4/127.0.0.1/tcp/60001/p2p/16Uiu2HAkyTos6LeGrj1YJyA3WYzp9qKQGCsxbtvyoBRHSu9PCrQZ --content-topic:/toy-chat/3/mingde/proto --ports-shift=2 --fleet:none --nodekey=9ab635854ffe8fed32b17d7ef38e0b2f354ca1f3283b7f78fb77227004d2cbe6 --rln-relay:true --rln-relay-membership-index:2
Choose a nickname >> Bob
Welcome, Bob!
Connecting to nodes
Listening on
/ip4/75.157.120.249/tcp/60002/p2p/16Uiu2HAmKdCdP89q6CwLc6PeFDJnVR1EmM7fTgtphHiacSNBnuAz
>> message1
--rln epoch: 164504929
<Feb 16, 14:08> Bob: message1
>> message2
--rln epoch: 164504930
<Feb 16, 14:08> Bob: message2
>> message3
--rln epoch: 164504930
<Feb 16, 14:08> Bob: message3
>> message4
--rln epoch: 164504973
<Feb 16, 14:15> Bob: message4
>> /exit
quitting...
Alice
./build/chat2 --staticnode:/ip4/127.0.0.1/tcp/60010/p2p/16Uiu2HAmKdCdP89q6CwLc6PeFDJnVR1EmM7fTgtphHiacSNBnuAz --content-topic:/toy-chat/3/mingde/proto --ports-shift=1 --fleet:none --nodekey=f157b19b13e9ee818acfc9d3d7eec6b81f70c0a978dec19def261172acbe26e6 --rln-relay:true --rln-relay-membership-index:1
Choose a nickname >> Alice
Welcome, Alice!
Connecting to nodes
Listening on
/ip4/75.157.120.249/tcp/60001/p2p/16Uiu2HAkyTos6LeGrj1YJyA3WYzp9qKQGCsxbtvyoBRHSu9PCrQZ
>> <Feb 16, 14:08> Bob: message1
>> <Feb 16, 14:08> Bob: message2
>> A spam message is found and discarded : <Feb 16, 14:08> Bob: message3
<Feb 16, 14:15> Bob: message4
>> /exit
quitting...
Carol
./build/chat2 --staticnode:/ip4/127.0.0.1/tcp/60001/p2p/16Uiu2HAkyTos6LeGrj1YJyA3WYzp9qKQGCsxbtvyoBRHSu9PCrQZ --content-topic:/toy-chat/3/mingde/proto --ports-shift=3 --fleet:none --nodekey=0aa89d7f27300c9fb4e119acc225c8873a3bf96bbb4c82045c94934bcc6a6af8 --rln-relay:true --rln-relay-membership-index:3
Choose a nickname >> Carol
Welcome, Carol!
Connecting to nodes
Listening on
/ip4/75.157.120.249/tcp/60003/p2p/16Uiu2HAm1bEDWZqjxfYRvGo1UpjaejkenJVmMFMPMDmgWWGkREJu
>> <Feb 16, 14:08> Bob: message1
>> <Feb 16, 14:08> Bob: message2
>> <Feb 16, 14:15> Bob: message4
>> /exit
quitting...