NAME
gnunet-pseudonym - create, delete or list pseudonyms
SYNOPSIS
gnunet-pseudonym [options]
DESCRIPTION
gnunet-pseudonym is a tool for managing pseudonyms and namespaces. A
pseudonym is the persona that controls a namespace. As such, it is
identical to a public-private RSA key pair. A namespace is a
collection of files that have been signed by the corresponding private
RSA key. A namespace is typically associated with a nickname and other
metadata which is kept in a specially named file in the namespace.
Namespaces are an important tool for providing assurances about content
integrity and authenticity in GNUnet. Since all of the content in the
namespace must have been provided by the same entity, users can form an
opinion about that entity and learn to search (or avoid) certain
namespaces.
gnunet-pseudonym can be used to list all of the pseudonyms that were
created locally, to create new pseudonyms, to delete existing
pseudonyms (the namespace will continue to exist, but it will be
impossible to add additional data to it) and to list all of the
namespaces (with their meta-data) known to the local user. By default,
gnunet-pseudonym lists all pseudonyms created locally and all of the
namespaces that were discovered so far.
Creating a new pseudonym requires using the -C option together with a
nickname that is to be used for the namespace. Nicknames must be
unique for each user, global uniqueness is desireable but not
necessary. If two namespaces in GNUnet use the same nickname all
GNUnet tools will display the nickname together with the unique
namespace identifier (which is derived from the public key and hence
guaranteed to be unique) to avoid ambiguity. Additional options can be
passed together with the -C option to provide additional meta-data that
describes the namespace. Possible meta-data includes the ’realname’ of
the person controlling the namespace, a description, the mime-type for
content in the namespace (useful if the namespace is dedicated to some
specific type of content) and contact information. One important piece
of meta-data that can be specified is the identifier of a document
root, that is the name of a file in the namespace that is a portal to
the rest of the content. This is useful to help users find this root
in the absence of conventions. Note that all of this meta-data is
optional and should never be trusted blindly.
gnunet-pseudonym also lists the meta-data available for other
namespaces. Namespaces can be discovered whenever the peer obtains the
namespace advertisement that is created at the time where the pseudonym
is created. Namespace advertisements can be found in directories (not
implemented), ordinary keyword-based searches (by default
gnunet-pseudonym publishes the namespace advertisement under the
keyword ’namespace’, but the -k option can be used to specify other
keywords) and under the ’all-zeros’ identifier of the respective
namespace (using a namespace-search if the namespace ID is already
known).
For more details about GNUnet namespaces and content encoding please
read the ’Encoding for Censorship-resistant Sharing’ (ECRS) paper which
can be found on the GNUnet webpage.
-a LEVEL, --anonymity=LEVEL
set desired level of sender anonymity. Default is 1.
-A, --automate
Start a (new) collection. Works only in conjunction with the -C
option. A collection is an automatically managed directory in a
namespace. In essence, after starting the collection every file
that you insert into GNUnet will automatically be placed into
the collection. Other users can browse your collection and be
certain (thanks to cryptography) that all of these files were
inserted into GNUnet by the same user (they do not necessarily
know who it is, but if you specify your realname (-r) they will
be able to see that handle). Collections are useful for
establishing a reputation for your GNUnet content, such that
readers can form an opinion about quality and availability.
Namespaces can be used to achieve the same thing, but
collections are automatic and thus less work for you.
Using collections has some security implications since it is
possible for an adversary to see that all of these files
originate from the same user. This may help a correlation
attack to break anonymity. Nevertheless we encourage using
collections, they are likely to be the right choice for most
users.
-C NAME, --create=NAME
Creates a new pseudonym with the given NAME.
-D NAME, --delete=NAME
Delete the pseudonym with the given NAME.
-e EMAIL, --email=EMAIL
Include EMAIL a contact address to contact the author of the
namespace (use with -C).
-E, --end
End a collection. This option is the opposite of the -a option
in that it stops the collection. Note that currently, once you
stop a collection you can never restart it. However, you can
start a new collection. There can only be one collection at any
given point in time for a particular user.
-h, --help
print help page
-k KEYWORD, --keyword=KEYWORD
Publish the namespace advertisement under the keyword ’KEYWORD’.
Default is ’namespace’ (use with -C). You can specify -k
multiple times. In that case, the namespace will be published
under each of those keywords.
-l, --local-only
only display local namespaces (those that we can extend with
content because we created them)
-m MIMETYPE, --mimetype=MIMETYPE
Advertise that the namespace contains files of the given
MIMETYPE (use with -C).
-n, --no-advertisement
Do not generate an advertisement for the namespace (use with
-C).
-p PRIORITY, --prio=PRIORITY
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.
-q, --quiet
Do not print the list of pseudonyms (only perform create or
delete operation).
-r NAME, --realname=NAME
Claim that the name of the author of the content in the
namespace in ’real’ life is NAME (use with -C).
-R IDENTIFIER, --root=IDENTIFIER
Specify the identifier for the root of the namespace. Used in
the namespace advertisement to tell users that find the
namespace advertisement about an entry-point into the namespace
(use with -C).
-s ID:VALUE, --set-rating=ID:VALUE
Change the rating for the namespace identified by ID by VALUE.
For example, "-s test:-3" decrements the rating of the pseudonym
"test" by 3. Note that ratings are purely local. Each user has
his own independent rating of namespaces. The rating is merely
a way for each user to keep track of his own experience with a
given namespace.
-u URI, --uri=URI
Include URI as an address where additional information about the
namespace can be found (use with -C).
FILES
~/.gnunet/data/pseudonyms/
Directory where the pseudonyms are stored
~/.gnunet/state.sdb/collection
File where information about the currently active collection is
kept (if any)
REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs by using mantis <https://gnunet.org/bugs/> or by sending
electronic mail to <gnunet-developers@gnu.org>
SEE ALSO
gnunet-insert(1), gnunet-search(1), gnunetd(1)