Simple With Whitelisting (sw2)

Simple With Whitelisting (sw2) is a nostr relay that displays and accepts notes only from whitelisted pubkeys.

It's built on the Khatru framework.

Prerequisites

• Go: Ensure you have Go installed on your system. You can download it from here.
• Build Essentials: If you're using Linux, you may need to install build essentials. You can do this by running sudo apt install build-essential.

Use Cases

This relay can suit a variety of uses:

• Running a small community: Community members are whitelisted to read and post notes.
• Running a knowledge base: Users are whitelisted to read notes, but only administrators can post notes.
• Running a blind dropbox: Users are whitelisted to post notes, but only the administrator can read notes.
• Combinations of the above: A Community where members can read and post, and guests can read only.

Setup Instructions

Follow these steps to get the sw2 Relay running on your local machine:

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/bitvora/sw2.git
cd sw2

2. Copy .env.example to .env

You'll need to create an .env file based on the example provided in the repository.

cp .env.example .env

3. Set your environment variables

Open the .env file and set the necessary environment variables. Example variables include:

RELAY_NAME="utxo's bot relay"
RELAY_PUBKEY="e2ccf7cf20403f3f2a4a55b328f0de3be38558a7d5f33632fdaaefc726c1c8eb"
RELAY_DESCRIPTION="all my bots will use this relay"
RELAY_URL="wss://bots.utxo.one"
RELAY_ICON="https://pfp.nostr.build/d8fb3b6100a0eb9e652bbc34a0c043b7f225dc74e4ed6d733d0e059f9bd444d4.jpg"
RELAY_CONTACT="https://utxo.one"

4.1 Whitelist Pubkeys for Reading Notes

Open the read_whitelist.json file and add pubkeys to the array

{
  "pubkeys": [
    "1c6cb22996baabe921bcd45c8b6213b2dab096f88e4ba5678d43d195a1868551",
    "9c5d0b120f01b75292d2a2bc32972bf918c8dd8927eaa633d3f62e181a292b27",
    "1bda7e1f7396bda2d1ef99033da8fd2dc362810790df9be62f591038bb97c4d9"
  ]
}

If the read_whitelist.json contains no pubkeys {"pubkeys": []}, then all users are authorised to read.

4.2 Whitelist Pubkeys for Posting Notes

Open the write_whitelist.json file and add pubkeys to the array

{
  "pubkeys": [
    "1c6cb22996baabe921bcd45c8b6213b2dab096f88e4ba5678d43d195a1868551",
    "9c5d0b120f01b75292d2a2bc32972bf918c8dd8927eaa633d3f62e181a292b27",
    "ede41352397758154514148b24112308ced96d121229b0e6a66bc5a2b40c03ec"
  ]
}

If the write_whitelist.json contains no pubkeys {"pubkeys": []}, then all users are authorised to write.

To maintain compatibliity with previous versions of SW2, a file whitelist.json can be used instead of write_whitelist.json if you prefer.

5. Build the project

Run the following command to build the relay:

go build

6. Create a Systemd Service (optional)

To have the relay run as a service, create a systemd unit file.

1. Create the file:

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/sw2.service

2. Add the following contents:

[Unit]
Description=sw2 Relay Service
After=network.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/home/ubuntu/sw2/sw2
WorkingDirectory=/home/ubuntu/sw2
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

3. Reload systemd to recognize the new service:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

4. Start the service:

sudo systemctl start sw2

5. (Optional) Enable the service to start on boot:

sudo systemctl enable sw2

Permission Issues on Some Systems

the relay may not have permissions to read and write to the database. To fix this, you can change the permissions of the database folder:

sudo chmod -R 777 /path/to/db

7. Serving over nginx (optional)

You can serve the relay over nginx by adding the following configuration to your nginx configuration file:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name yourdomain.com;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://localhost:3334;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
    }
}

Replace yourdomain.com with your actual domain name.

After adding the configuration, restart nginx:

sudo systemctl restart nginx

8. Install Certbot (optional)

If you want to serve the relay over HTTPS, you can use Certbot to generate an SSL certificate.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install certbot python3-certbot-nginx

After installing Certbot, run the following command to generate an SSL certificate:

sudo certbot --nginx

Follow the instructions to generate the certificate.

8. Access the relay

Once everything is set up, the relay will be running on localhost:3334 or your domain name if you set up nginx.