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Hi everyone, lots of updates today

* Index
1) 0.3.4.3 status
1.1) timestamper
1.2) new router console authentication
2) 0.4 status
2.1) service & systray integration
2.2) jbigi & jcpuid
2.3) i2paddresshelper
3) AMOC vs. restricted routes
4) stasher
5) pages of note
6) ???

* 1) 0.3.4.3 status

The 0.3.4.3 release came out last Friday and things have been going
pretty well since.  There have been some problems with some newly
introduced tunnel testing and peer selection code, but after some
tweaking since the release, its pretty solid.  I don't know if the
irc server is on the new rev yet, so we generally have to rely on
testing with eepsites(I2P Sites) and the http outproxies (squid.i2p and
www1.squid.i2p).  Large (>5MB) file transfers in the 0.3.4.3
release are still not reliable enough, but in my testing, the
modifications since then have improved things further.

The network has been growing as well - we hit 45 concurrent users
earlier today, and have been consistently in the 38-44 user range
for a few days (w00t)!  This is a healthy number for the moment, and
I've been monitoring the overall network activity to watch for
dangers.  When moving to the 0.4 release, we're going to want to
gradually increase the userbase up to around the 100 router mark and
test some more before growing further.  At least, thats my goal from
a developer's perspective.

* 1.1) timestamper

One of the totally kickass things that changed with the 0.3.4.3
release that I completely forgot to mention was an update to the
SNTP code.  Thanks to the generosity of Adam Buckley, who has agreed
to release his SNTP code under the BSD license, we have merged the
old Timestamper app into the core I2P SDK and integrated it fully
with our clock.  This means three things:
 1) you can delete the timestamper.jar (the code is in i2p.jar now)
 2) you can remove the related clientApp lines from your config
 3) you can update your config to use the new time sync options

The new options in the router.config are simple, and the default
values should be good enough (especially true since the majority of
you are unintentially using them :)

To set the list of SNTP servers to query:

 time.sntpServerList=pool.ntp.org,pool.ntp.org,pool.ntp.org

To disable the time synchronization (only if you are an NTP guru and
know that your OS's clock is *always* right - running "windows time"
is NOT sufficient):

 time.disabled=true

You don't need to have a 'timestamper password' anymore, since it is
all integrated into the code directly (ah, the joys of BSD vs GPL :)

* 1.2) new router console authentication

This is only relevent for those of you running the new router
console, but if you have it listening on a public interface, you may
want to take advantage of the integrated basic HTTP authentication.
Yes, basic HTTP authentication is absurdly weak - it won't protect
against anyone who sniffs your network or brute forces their way in,
but it'll keep out the casual sneak.  Anyway, to use it, simply add
the line

 consolePassword=blah

to your router.config.  You will, unfortunately, have to restart the
router, as this parameter is fed into Jetty only once (during
startup).

* 2) 0.4 status

We're making a lot of headway on the 0.4 release, and we hope to get
some prerelease versions out there in the next week.  We're still
hammering out some details though, so we don't have a solid upgrade
process put together yet.  The release will be backwards compatible,
so it shouldn't be too painful of an update.  Anyway, keep an ear to
the ground and you'll know when things are ready.

* 2.1) service & systray integration

Hypercubus is making lots of progress on integrating the installer,
a systray application, and some service management code.  Basically,
for the 0.4 release all windows users will automatically have a small
systray icon (Iggy!), though they will be able to disable (and/or
reenable) that through the web console.  In addition, we're going to
be bundling the JavaService [1] wrapper, which will let us do all
sorts of cool things, such as run I2P on system boot (or not),
auto-restart on some conditions, hard JVM restart on demand,
generate stack traces, and all sorts of other goodies.

[1] http://wrapper.tanukisoftware.org/doc/english/

* 2.2) jbigi & jcpuid

One of the big updates in the 0.4 release will be an overhaul of the
jbigi code, merging in the modifications Iakin made for Freenet as
well as Iakin's new "jcpuid" native library.  The jcpuid library
works only on x86 architectures and, in tandem with some new jbigi
code, will determine the 'right' jbigi to load.  As such, we will
be shipping a single jbigi.jar that everyone will have, and from it
select the 'right' one for the current machine.  People will of
course still be able to build their own native jbigi, overriding
what jcpuid wants (simply build it and copy it into your I2P
installation directory, or name it "jbigi" and place it in a .jar
file in your classpath).  However, because of the updates, it is
*not* backwards compatible - when upgrading, you must either
rebuild your own jbigi or remove your existing native library (to
let the new jcpuid code choose the right one).

* 2.3) i2paddresshelper

oOo has put together a really cool helper to let people browse
eepsites(I2P Sites) without updating their hosts.txt.  It is committed to CVS
and will be deployed in the next release, but people may want to
consider updating links accordingly (cervantes has updated
forum.i2p's [i2p] bbcode to support it with a "Try it [i2p]" link).

Basically you just make a link to the eepsite(I2P Site) with whatever name you
want, then tack on a special url parameter specifying the
destination:

  http://wowthisiscool.i2p/?i2paddresshelper=FpCkYW5pw...

Behind the scenes, its pretty safe - you can't spoof some other
address, and the name is *not* persisted in hosts.txt, but it will
let you see images / etc linked to on eepsites(I2P Sites) that you wouldn't be
able to with the old http://i2p/base64/ trick.  If you want to always
be able to use "wowthisiscool.i2p" to reach that site, you will
still of course have to add the entry to your hosts.txt (until the
MyI2P address book is pushed out, that is ;)

* 3) AMOC vs. restricted routes

Mule has been throwing together some ideas and prodding me to explain
some things, and in the process, he has been making some headway in
getting me to reevaluate the whole AMOC idea.  Specifically, if we
drop one of the constraints I've placed on our transport layer -
allowing us to assume bidirectionality - we may be able to scrap
the whole AMOC transport, instead implementing some basic restricted
route operation (leaving the foundations for more advanced
restricted route techniques, like trusted peers and multihop router
tunnels for later).

If we go this route, it would mean people would be able to
participate in the network behind firewalls, NATs, etc with no
configuration, as well as offer some of the restricted route
anonymity properties.  In turn, it would likely cause a big revamp
to our roadmap [2], but if we can do it safely, it would save us a
truckload of time and be well worth the change.

However, we don't want to rush it, and will need to review the
anonymity and security implications carefully before committing to
that path.  We'll do so after 0.4 is out and going smoothly, so
there is no rush.

[2] http://www.i2p.net/roadmap

* 4) stasher

Word on the street is that aum is making some good progress - I don't
know if he'll be around for the meeting with an update, but he did
leave us a snippet on #i2p this morning:

 <aum> hi all, can't talk long, just a quick stasher update - work is
       continuing on implementing freenet keytypes, and freenet FCP
       compatibility - work in progress, should have a test build
       ready to try out by the end of the week

w00t.

* 5) pages of note

I just want to point out two new resources available that I2P users
may want to check out - DrWoo has put together a page [3] with a
whole bunch of info for people who want to browse anonymously, and
Luckypunk has posted up a howto describing his experiences with some
JVMs on FreeBSD [4].  Hypercubus also posted the docs [5] on testing
out the not-yet-released service & systray integration.

[3] http://brittanyworld.i2p/browsing
[4] http://forum.i2p.net/viewtopic.php?t=54
[5] http://forum.i2p.net/viewtopic.php?t=55

* 6) ???

Ok, thats all I've got to say at the moment - swing by the meeting
tonight at 9p GMT if you'd like to bring something else up.

=jr

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