SYNOPSIS
gnunet-insert [OPTIONS] FILENAMEDESCRIPTION
In order to share files with other GNUnet users, the files must first be made available to GNUnet. GNUnet does not automatically share all files from a certain directory. In fact, even files that are downloaded are not automatically shared.
In order to start sharing files, the files must be added either using gnunet-insert or gnunet-gtk. The command line tool gnunet-insert is more useful if many files are supposed to be added. gnunet-insert can automatically insert batches of files, recursively insert directories, create directories that can be browsed within GNUnet and publish file lists in a namespace. When run on a directory, gnunet-insert will always recursively publish all of the files in the directory.
gnunet-insert can automatically extract keywords from the files that are shared. Users that want to download files from GNUnet use keywords to search for the appropriate content. You can disable keyword extraction with the -D option. You can manually add keywords using the -k and -K options.
In addition to searching for files by keyword, GNUnet allows organizing files into directories. With directories, the user only needs to find the directory in order to be able to download any of the files listed in the directory. Directories can contain pointers to other directories.
With gnunet-insert, it is easy to create new directories simultaneously when adding the files. Simply pass the name of a directory instead of a file.
Since keywords can be spammed (any user can add any content under any keyword), GNUnet supports namespaces. A namespace is a subset of the searchspace into which only the holder of a certain pseudonym can add content. Any GNUnet user can create any number of pseudonyms using gnunet-pseudonym-create. Pseudonyms are stored in the users GNUnet directory and can be additionally protected with a password. While pseudonyms are locally uniquely identified with an arbitrary string that the user selects when the pseudonym is created, the globally only the hash of the public key is guaranteed to be unique. However, the locally chosen name is added to the meta-data as the title of the namespace. Since only the owner of the pseudonym can add content to the namespace, it is impossible for other users to pollute the namespace. gnunet-insert automatically inserts the top-directory (or the only file if only one file is specified) into the namespace if a pseudonym is specified. If no specific namespace-identifier is specified (option -t), gnunet-insert selects a random identifier.
It is possible to update content in GNUnet if that content was placed and obtained from a particular namespace. Updates are only possible for content in namespaces since this is the only way to assure that a malicious party can not supply counterfeited updates. GNUnet supports two types of updateable content, sporadically updated content and periodically updated content. If content is periodically updated (every day, every week, etc.), the period must be passed to gnunet-insert with the -i option. The -S option is used to indicate sporadically updated content. You can use the -N option to specify the future identifier of the update (only for the first update of periodically updated content). Without -N, gnunet-insert will select (and output) a random identifier that must be used for the next update. You can use the option -u to specify the identifier of the previous version of the content that you want to update.
You can use automatic meta-data extraction (based on libextractor) or the command-line option -m to specify meta-data. For the -m option you need to use the form keyword-type:value. For example, use "-m os:Linux" to specify that the operating system is Linux. Common meta-data types are "author", "title" , "mimetype", "filename", "language", "subject" and "keywords". A full list can be obtained from the extract tool using the option --list. The meta-data is used to help users in searching for files on the network. The keywords are case-sensitive.
GNUnet supports two styles of publishing files on the network. Inserting a file means that a copy of the file is made in the local (!) database of the node. Indexing a file means that an index is added to the local (!) database with symbolic links to the file itself. The links will use the SHA-512 hash of the entire file as the filename. Indexing is generally significantly more efficient and the default choice. However, indexing only works if the indexed file can be read (using the same absolute path) by gnunetd. If this is not the case, indexing will fail (and gnunet-insert will automatically revert to inserting instead). Regardless of which method is used to publish the file, the file will be slowly (depending on how often it is requested and on how much bandwidth is available) dispersed into the network. If you insert or index a file and then leave the network, it will almost always NOT be available anymore.
-c FILENAME, --config=FILENAME Use alternate config file (if this option is not specified, the default is ~/.gnunet/gnunet.conf).
-C, --copy Even if using links to the .gnunet directory is generally permitted, make a copy of the file (disables symlinking even if it is possible). When indexing a file, gnunet-insert will create a copy of the file in the "share" directory of gnunetd. If that directory happens to be on the local machine (i.e. gnunetd runs on localhost) then gnunet-insert can instead just use a link. This will not work over the network, if the file-permissions do not allow gnunetd to read the file or if the file maybe changed afterwards. Hence the default is to be inefficient and to make a copy. With this option you can force gnunet-insert to not make a link. gnunet-insert will fall back to creating a copy.
- -D, --disable-direct
-
Disable direct indexing information that would otherwise refer to
files inside of directories directly. Without -D, contents can be
found directly using keywords extracted with libextractor. Use -D if
you index directories with many similar files that are adequately
described using keywords for the directory and for which individual
references would unduely pollute the global keyword search space. Also
use -D to disable libextractor for individual file publications.
This way you can ensure that a file will only be referenced using the
keywords that you are specifying explicitly.
- -e, --extract
-
Print the list of keywords that will be extracted. Do not perform any
indexing or insertion.
- -h, --help
-
Print a brief help page with all the options.
- -H HOSTNAME, --host=HOSTNAME
-
on which host is gnunetd running (default: localhost). You can also
specify a port using the syntax HOSTNAME:PORT. The default port is
2087.
- -k KEYWORD, --key=KEYWORD
-
additional key to index the content with (to add multiple keys,
specify multiple times). Each additional key is case-sensitive. Can be
specified multiple times. The keyword is only applied to the
top-level files or directories.
- -K KEYWORD, --global-key=KEYWORD
-
additional key to index the content with. Keywords specified with -K
are applied to files and directories encountered on the command-line
or in the recursive scan. This is the only difference to the -k
option. This option can be specified multiple times.
- -L LOGLEVEL, --loglevel=LOGLEVEL
-
Change the loglevel. Possible values for LOGLEVEL are NOTHING, FATAL,
ERROR, WARNING, INFO, STATUS and DEBUG. Note that options in the
configuration file take precedence over this option (the argument
will be ignored in that case).
- -m TYPE:VALUE, --meta=TYPE:VALUE
-
For the main file (or directory), set the metadata of the given TYPE
to the given VALUE. Note that this will not add the respective VALUE
to the set of keywords under which the file can be found.
- -n, --noindex
-
Executive summary: You probably don't need it.
Do not index, full insertion. Note that directories, RBlocks, SBlocks and IBlocks are always inserted (even without this option). With this option, every block of the actual files is stored in encrypted form in the block database of the local peer. While this adds security if the local node is compromised (the adversary snags your machine), it is significantly less efficient compared to on-demand encryption and is definitely not recommended for large files.
- -N ID, --next=ID
-
Specifies the next ID of a future version of the SBlock. This option
is only valid together with the -P option. This option can be used
to specify what the identifier of an updated version will look like.
Without the -i option, a one-shot update SBlock is used
(a-periodic). With the -i option, the difference between the
current ID (this) and the next ID is used to compute all future IDs.
Note that specifying -i and -N without -t hardly ever makes sense.
- -p PRIORITY, --prio=PRIORITY
-
Executive summary: You probably don't need it.
Set the priority of the inserted content (default: 365). If the local database is full, GNUnet will discard the content with the lowest ranking. Note that ranks change over time depending on popularity. The default should be high enough to preserve the locally inserted content in favor of content that migrates from other peers.
- -P NAME, --pseudonym=NAME
-
For the top-level directory or file, create an SBlock that places the
file into the namespace specified by the pseudonym NAME. When using
-P, you must also use the option -t to specifiy which identifier
should be used for the entry in the namespace.
- -s, --simulate-only
-
When this option is used, gnunet-insert will not actually publish
the file but just simulate what would be done. This can be used to
compute the GNUnet URI for a file without actually sharing it.
- -t ID, --this=ID
-
Specifies the ID of the SBlock. This option is only valid together
with the -P option and together with either the option -b or only a
single filename on the command-line.
- -u URI, --uri=URI
-
This option can be used to specify the URI of a file instead of
a filename (this is the only case where the otherwise mandatory
filename argument must be omitted). Instead of publishing a file
or directory and using the corresponding URI, gnunet-insert will
use this URI and perform the selected namespace or keyword
operations. This can be used to add additional keywords to a
file that has already been shared or to add files to a namespace
for which the URI is known but the content is not locally available.
- -v, --version
-
Print the version number.
- -V, --verbose
-
Be verbose. Using this option causes gnunet-insert to print progress
information and at the end the file identification that can be used to
download the file from GNUnet.
EXAMPLES
Basic examples
Index a file COPYING:
# gnunet-insert COPYING
Insert a file COPYING:
# gnunet-insert -n COPYING
Index a file COPYING with the keywords gpl and test:
# gnunet-insert -k gpl -k test COPYING
Index a file COPYING with description "GNU License", mime-type "text/plain" and keywords gpl and test:
# gnunet-insert -m "description:GNU License" -k gpl -k test -m "mimetype:text/plain" COPYING
Using directories
Index the files COPYING and AUTHORS with keyword test and build a directory containing the two files. Make the directory itself available under keyword gnu and disable keyword extraction using libextractor:
# mkdir gnu
# mv COPYING AUTHORS gnu/
# gnunet-insert -K test -k gnu -D gnu/
Neatly publish an image gallery in kittendir/ and its subdirs with keyword kittens for the directory but no keywords for the individual files or subdirs (-n). Force description for all files:
# gnunet-insert -n -m "description:Kitten collection" -k kittens kittendir/
Secure publishing with namespaces
Insert file COPYING with pseudonym RIAA-2 (-P) and with identifier gpl (-t) and no updates:
# gnunet-insert -P RIAA-2 -t gpl COPYING
Recursively index /home/ogg and build a matching directory structure. Insert the top-level directory into the namespace under the pseudonym RIAA-2 (-P) under identifier 'MUSIC' (-t) and promise to provide an update with identifier 'VIDEOS' (-N):
# gnunet-insert -P RIAA-2 -t MUSIC -N VIDEOS /home/ogg
Recursively insert (-n) /var/lib/mysql and build a matching directory structure, but disable the use of libextractor to extract keywords (-n). Print the file identifiers (-V) that can be used to retrieve the files. This will store a copy of the MySQL database in GNUnet but without adding any keywords to search for it. Thus only people that have been told the secret file identifiers printed with the -V option can retrieve the (secret?) files:
# gnunet-insert -nV /var/lib/mysql
Create a namespace entry 'root' in namespace MPAA-1 and announce that the next update will be called 'next':
# gnunet-insert -P MPAA-1 -t root -N next noise.mp3
Update the previous entry, do not allow any future updates:
# gnunet-insert -P MPAA-1 -t next noise_updated.mp3
NOTES
As most GNUnet command-line tools, gnunet-insert supports passing arguments using environment variables. This can improve your privacy since otherwise the published filenames will likely be visible to other local users. Setting "GNUNET_ARGS" will cause the respective string to be appended to the actual command-line and to be processed the same way as arguments given directly at the command line.
FILES
- ~/.gnunet/gnunet.conf
- GNUnet configuration file