GNUNET-IDENTITY(1)
GNUNET-IDENTITY π
okay bestie, welcome to the gnunet-identity page from the General Commands Manual β she's a whole icon and she's about to make egos make sense, fr fr.
β¨ NAME β¨
gnunet-identity β maintain (create, delete or list) or perform actions with egos π
πΈ SYNOPSIS πΈ
gnunet-identity [-C NAME | --create=NAME] [-D NAME | --delete=NAME]
[-d | --display] [-e NAME | --ego=NAME] [-h | --help]
[-k PUBLIC_KEY | --key=PUBLIC_KEY] [-m | --monitor]
[-p | --private-keys] [-q | --quiet]
[-R MESSAGE | --read=MESSAGE] [-V | --verbose]
[-W MESSAGE | --write=MESSAGE] [-X | --eddsa]
π DESCRIPTION π
so gnunet-identity is the tool for managing egos. and no, an ego here is not your ex β an ego is the persona that controls a namespace. it is identical to a public-private ECC key pair. iconic behavior honestly.
she can do a bunch of stuff, like:
- list all of the egos that were created locally
- create new egos
- delete existing egos β and heads up bestie, when you delete one, the namespace will continue to exist, but it will be impossible to add additional data to it π
and that's not all!! you can also encrypt and decrypt messages (arbitrary strings, so like, whatever you want) using a given public key (for encryption) or an ego (for decryption). she's multifaceted, we love that.
one thing you gotta know: creating a new ego requires using the -C option together with an identifier (name) that is to be used for the new ego. and this identifier is only used locally for this peer and not shared with other peers. so it's your little secret, iykyk π€«
the options are as follows:
-C NAME,--create=NAMEβ creates a new ego with the given NAME. brand new baby ego, slay π¦-D NAME,--delete=NAMEβ delete the ego with the given NAME. bye bestie π-d,--displayβ display all of our egos. the full roster, no cap.-e NAME,--ego=NAMEβ perform "set" operation with the respective ego, or restrict "display" operation to the respective ego. one ego, main character energy only π-h,--helpβ print the help page. she's helpful like that π«Ά-k PUBLIC_KEY,--key=PUBLIC_KEYβ the public key to use for a message recipient. use together with-W. the recipient can obtain the desired ego's public key using the "display" operation. pass it along bestie π-m,--monitorβ run in monitor mode, listing all ouf our egos untilCTRL-Cis pressed. each ego is listed together with a unique pointer value; if egos are renamed, that pointer value remains the same, if egos are deleted, they are listed one more time with a name of"<null>". okay so it's literally livestreaming your egos πΊ-p,--private-keysβ print the private keys (in Crockford Base32 encoding), and not just the public keys. the second column shows the public key, the third column shows the private key. three columns of pure drama π-q,--quietβ be quiet, in particular outputs only the public key when listing egos. shhh, minimal vibes β¨-R MESSAGE,--read=MESSAGEβ decrypt (read) a message using the respective ego private key. use together with-e. the message consists of an ephemeral key and the ciphertext, separated by a dot. such messages can be created with-W. reading is fundamental, bestie π-V,--verboseβ be verbose, in particular outputs the public key of freshly created egos. she's chatty and we love her π£οΈ-W MESSAGE,--write=MESSAGEβ encrypt (write) the given message for the identity given with-k. the output contains an ephemeral message public key and the message separated by a dot. the entire line needs to be transferred to the recipient, who can use-Rto decrypt the message. the entire line, do not be out here copy-pasting half of it π-X,--eddsaβ use EdDSA instead of ECDSA. switching it up π
π FILES π
~/.local/share/gnunet/identity/egosβ directory where the egos are stored by default. that's where all your egos live, rent free π
π SEE ALSO π
the full documentation for gnunet is maintained as a Texinfo manual. if the info(1) and gnunet programs are properly installed at your site, the command
info gnunet
should give you access to the complete handbook,
info gnunet-c-tutorial
will give you access to a tutorial for developers.
depending on your installation, this information is also available in gnunet(7) and gnunet-c-tutorial(7). go read, bestie, knowledge is the vibe check πβ¨
π BUGS π
found a bug? report bugs by using https://bugs.gnunet.org or by sending electronic mail to β¨gnunet-developers@gnu.orgβ©. don't suffer in silence, tell the devs π«Ά
and that's the whole page bestie!! this version came from Debian, dated September 5, 2013, under the title GNUNET-IDENTITY(1). she's vintage but she ate and left no crumbs π
β¨π go create some egos, periodt π
π¦ where this page comes from
- alpine 3.24: gnunet-doc 0.27.0-r0 Β· AGPL-3.0-only
- debian bookworm: gnunet 0.19.3-2 Β· AGPL-3.0-or-later
- debian trixie: gnunet 0.20.0-7 Β· AGPL-3.0-or-later
- nixos 26.05: gnunet 0.26.2
- nixpkgs unstable: gnunet 0.26.2
- opensuse-leap 16.0: gnunet 0.23.1-bp160.1.18 Β· AGPL-3.0-or-later
- opensuse-leap 16.0: gnunet 0.23.1-bp160.1.18 Β· AGPL-3.0-or-later
- opensuse-leap 16.0: gnunet 0.23.1-bp160.1.18 Β· AGPL-3.0-or-later
- opensuse-leap 16.0: gnunet 0.23.1-bp160.1.18 Β· AGPL-3.0-or-later
- ubuntu noble: gnunet 0.20.0-4.1build3 Β· AGPL-3.0-or-later
- ubuntu questing: gnunet 0.20.0-7
- ubuntu resolute: gnunet 0.20.0-8 Β· AGPL-3.0-or-later
- ubuntu stonking: gnunet 0.20.0-9 Β· AGPL-3.0-or-later
- π the page's license: GPL3.0-or-later OR FDL1.3-or-later
- Copyright (C) 2001-2019 GNUnet e.V
- π girlified by deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash on : a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms