libp2p / libp2p/specs

Onion Routing for libp2p

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Description

This might be a duplicate of #200.

Proposal

I would like to propose defining and implementing a way of doing onion routing through libp2p. This is explicitly not about integrating onion routing based transports like Tor or I2P into libp2p but rather about a onion router in libp2p that can be used as well as a behaviour and a transport.

Since there are many different opinions on how to do onion routing right I would suggest only defining the onion routing itself, i.e. the key agreement as well as traffic forwarding. Other aspects like how the route is built, the list of available entry, exit and middle nodes is retrieved should be left to the user of libp2p as it's sometimes highly specific to the use case.
Furthermore there should be a way of letting behaviors know that they should use the onion router for something.

Related issues / PRs

  • Onion Routing considerations for libp2p #200
  • Tor and nim-libp2p status-im/nim-libp2p#765
  • Tor and rust-libp2p libp2p/rust-libp2p#2899

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First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reviewing the proposal and the related onion-routing considerations in issue #200, then compare the linked Tor and rust-libp2p discussions. No implementation files or tests are named; the work would be complete only after the libp2p onion-routing key agreement, traffic forwarding, and behavior integration are defined and implemented.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Domain
networking, security
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
20/100

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