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elixxir/client

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This repo contains the Elixxir command-line client (used for integration testing) and related libraries that facilitate making more full-featured clients for all platforms.

##Running the Command Line Client

First, make sure dependencies are installed into the vendor folder by running glide up. Then, in the project directory, run go run main.go.

If what you're working on requires you to change other repos, you can remove the other repo from the vendor folder and Go's build tools will look for those packages in your Go path instead. Knowing which dependencies to remove can be really helpful if you're changing a lot of repos at once.

If glide isn't working and you don't know why, try removing glide.lock and ~/.glide to brutally cleanse the cache.

Mutually exclusive (almost) required args:

Long flag Short flag Effect Example
--userid -i ID of precanned user to use -i 5
--regcode -e Registration code to use for logging in a new user -e AAAA

The above args are mutually exclusive and are not fully required.

For example, to login as canned user 18, use -i 18 and any registration code specified with -e will be ignored. To login as a new user, -i MUST not be specified, and -e will be the registration code to be used.

NOTE: There is a third way of starting the client, which ONLY works without specifying any of the above args. This will internally ignore the registration address, if specified, and will do registration directly on the Nodes only.

Optional args:

Long flag Short flag Effect Example
--message -m Message to send -m "top of the morning"
--messageTimeout -t The number of seconds to wait for 'waitForMessages' messages to arrive (default 45) -t 42
--ndf -n Path to the network definition JSON file (default "ndf.json") -n "ndf.json"
--SearchForUser -s Sets the email to search for to find a user with user discovery -s "david@chaum.com
--dest64 Sets the destination user id encoded in base 64 --dest64 "yCvV6AsEK3l+45Gn4awBJ4lpb+hT2sO6yzxjeraRor0="
--destid -d ID to send message to -d 69
--email -E Email to register for User Discovery -e "david@chaum.com"
--end2end Send messages with E2E encryption to destination user. Must have found each other via UDB first -end2end
--help help for client --help
--keyParams Define key generation parameters. Pass values in comma separated list in the following order: MinKeys,MaxKeys,NumRekeys,TTLScalar,MinNumKeys
--ndfPubKey -p Path to the public key for the network definition JSON file
--nick Nickname to register for User Discovery (default "Default") --nick "zezima"
--noBlockingTransmission Sets if transmitting messages blocks or not. Defaults to true if unset. --noBlockingTransmission
--noTLS Set to ignore TLS. Connections will fail if the network requires TLS. For debugging --noTLS
--privateKey The path for a PEM encoded private key which will be used to create the user --privateKey "key.pem"
--rateLimiting Sets the amount of time, in ms, that the client waits between sending messages. set to zero to disable. Automatically disabled if 'blockingTransmission' is false (default 1000) --rateLimiting 100
--regcode string -r Registration Code with the registration server --regcode "AAAA"
--sessionfile -f Passes a file path for loading a session. If the file doesnt exist the code will register the user and store it there. If not passed the session will be stored to ram and lost when the cli finishes -s "user.session"
--skipNDFVerification Specifies if the NDF should be loaded without the signature --skipNDFVerification
--userid -i ID to sign in as. Does not register, must be an available precanned user -i 32
--verbose -v Verbose mode for debugging -v
--version -V Show the client version information -V
--waitForMessages -w Denotes the number of messages the client should receive before closing (default 1) -w 7

Runs a client for cMix anonymous communication platform

Use "client [command] --help" for more information about a command.

##Project Structure

api package contains functions that clients written in Go should call to do all of the main interactions with the client library.

bindings package exists for compatibility with Gomobile. All functions and structs in the bindings package must be able to be bound with $ gomobile bind or they will be unceremoniously removed. There are many requirements for this, and if you're writing bindings, you should check the gomobile documentation listed below.

In general, clients written in Go should use the api package and clients written in other languages should use the bindings package.

bots contains code for interacting with bots. If the amount of code required to easily interact with a bot is reasonably small, it should go in this package.

cmd contains the command line client itself, including the dummy messaging prototype that sends messages at a constant rate.

crypto contains code for encrypting and decrypting individual messages with the client's part of the cipher.

globals contains a few global variables. Avoid putting more things in here without seriously considering the alternatives. Most important is the Log variable:

globals.Log.ERROR.Println("this is an error")

Using this global Log variable allows external users of jww logging, like the console UI, to see and print log messages from the client library if they need to, so please use globals.Log for all logging messages to make this behavior work consistently.

If you think you can come up with a better design to deal with this problem, please go ahead and implement it. Anything that moves towards the globals package no longer existing is probably a win.

io contains functions for communicating between the client and the gateways. It's also currently responsible for putting fragmented messages back together.

parse contains functions for serializing and deserializing various specialized information into messages. This includes message types and fragmenting messages that are too long.

payment deals with the wallet and payments, and keeping track of all related data in non-volatile storage.

switchboard includes a structure that you can use to listen to incoming messages and dispatch them to the correct handlers.

user includes objects that deal with the user's identity and the session and session storage.

##Gomobile

We bind all exported symbols from the bindings package for use on mobile platforms. To set up Gomobile for Android, install the NDK and pass the -ndk flag to $ gomobile init. Other repositories that use Gomobile for binding should include a shell script that creates the bindings.

###Recommended Reading for Gomobile

https://godoc.org/golang.org/x/mobile/cmd/gomobile (setup and available subcommands)

https://godoc.org/golang.org/x/mobile/cmd/gobind (reference cycles, type restrictions)

Currently we aren't using reverse bindings, i.e. calling mobile from Go.

###Testing Bindings via Gomobile

The separate bindings-integration repository exists to make it easier to automatically test bindings. Writing instrumented tests from Android allows you to create black-box tests that also prove that all the methods you think are getting bound are indeed bound, rather than silently getting skipped.

You can also verify that all symbols got bound by unzipping bindings-sources.jar and inspecting the resulting source files.

Every time you make a change to the client or bindings, you must rebuild the client bindings into a .aar to propagate those changes to the app. There's a script that runs gomobile for you in the bindings-integration repository.