Rambler wrote on February 2, 2021 at 2:27 PM (edited on February 2, 2021 at 2:35 PM)

You can always run an I2P router if you've not used the network before, or contribute to any other network that interests you. (I need to get a Yggdrasil peer up myself)

Depending on the specs you could run a SearX or YaCy search engine/crawler.

Can always use it as just a test/dev box to learn something new. Or can just setup something like a invidious instance or some other open source privacy related project to share with others.

If you're used to one type of OS, can do something you'd usually do on Debian but use CentOS instead, for example.

Or you can be like me and want to kick your screen through the wall dealing with Ubuntu's use of Netplan when you're used to things like ifconfig for networking. Spaces instead of tabs? Fucking really? I have limited experience with it since I primarily use Debian across the board on everything... From desktop OS at home to server-side stuff. But things I find trivial on Debian made me want to Chuck Norris my monitor into a new dimension doing things like trying to add IPV6 addresses to a box. Hard to teach an old dog new tricks I guess.

I also hate Docker but I just don't do well with change and hate that simple looking things like this site require a stupid amount of underlying components and dependencies.

You can do the opposite of what I do and embrace change and learn from it.

____ OP wrote on February 2, 2021 at 2:35 PM

Yeah I was thinking of setting up my own pastebin or something, since Pastebin.com applies a lot of censorship nowadays with their "SMART" filter. How does setting up an I2P router work? I have experience with installing i2pd but I wouldn't know how to go from there to make it part of the I2P network.

Rambler wrote on February 2, 2021 at 2:48 PM

I2P is pretty straight forward. You can either install the .deb, the java package from I2P's site or use I2P+ which is what I prefer ( https://i2pplus.com/ ). If using the .deb, just make sure you update it afterwards since the package is almost certainly outdated.

If using a VPS, you'll have to tunnel your localhost desktop traffic to it. I do something like:

ssh -fTNL 4444:127.0.0.1:4444 -L 7657:127.0.0.1:7657 -L 7667:127.0.0.1:7667 -L 7658:127.0.0.1:7658 -L 6668:127.0.0.1:6668 user@remote-ip -p XXXX

Port 4444 = local proxy settings (for browsing I2P network sites), 7657 and 7667 for the console UI in your browser (7667 is SSL, 7657 non-ssl), 7658 is the built in webserver and 6668 is IRC. "XXXX" would just be whatever your remote SSH port is if not 22.

Out of the box, stock I2P is... lacking. The system uses "subscription lists" and an "addressbook" to access network sites. ramble.i2p won't work out of the box, simply because it's not published on their stock subscription list, which is about 40 random network sites of which half of them work, half the time. You either have to add sites to your addressbook manually or by using their "address helper links" or using a published subscription list which contains a lot of sites that'll be added to your addressbook. Check out /f/i2p for more on that.

____ OP wrote on February 2, 2021 at 5:20 PM

Thanks for this. I only have experience with the Javaless version i2pd so I'll check this out.