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katzenpost_thinclient

A thin client for sending and receiving messages via a Katzenpost mix network.

This pypi package provides a thin client library for interacting with a Katzenpost mixnet.

A mix network is a type of anonymous communications network.

A thin client library is code you can use as a depencency in your application so that it can anonymously interact with services on the mix network. The Katzenpost client daemon is a multiplexing client; many applications on the same device can use their thin client libraries to connect to the daemon and interact with mixnet services concurrently.

Contributions

This is a work in progress and we'll require feedback from developers to make improvements. Pull requests welcome:

https://github.com/katzenpost/thin_client

Documentation

Here's our python API docs: https://katzenpost.network/docs/python_thin_client.html

Here's our thin client integration guide: https://github.com/katzenpost/website/blob/main/content/en/docs/client_integration.md

Installation

Install katzenpost using pip:

pip install katzenpost_thinclient

or

pip install -e .

Running Code Examples

In the tests/ directory AND the examples/ directory you'll find some simple python examples that use this library. However both of them refer to the path to the katzenpost docker mixnet's client2's thinclient's config, like so:

docker_mixnet_thinclient_cfg = "../../katzenpost/docker/voting_mixnet/client2/thinclient.toml"

These examples are meant to be runned after starting a katzenpost docker mixnet. Firstly, start the docker mixnet. For details instructions, go here: https://katzenpost.network/docs/admin_guide/docker.html We'll be working with the Katzenpost monorepo to get the docker mixnet started: https://github.com/katzenpost/katzenpost

cd katzenpost/docker
make start wait run-ping

Once our docker mixnet is fully started up then we can start the client2 daemon:

cd katzenpost/client2
make warpedclientdaemon
cd cmd/kpclientd
./kpclientd -c ../../../docker/voting_mixnet/client2/client.toml

The above client2/client.toml should have been created by the docker Makefile (via the make start command above) which sets up a new docker mixnet. Next we can finally run our test and examples:

pytest

and

cd examples
python fetch_pki_doc.py
# blah blah informative output
python echo_ping.py
# blah blah informative output

Additional Code Examples

We have two working example python programs that use this thin client library:

  1. stats - terminal application that prints the current mixnet status https://github.com/katzenpost/status

  2. worldmap - renders an image of the mixnet transposed over a worldmap https://github.com/katzenpost/worldmap

Compatibility

Works with Katzenpost v0.0.49 or later.

License

AGPLv3