BIRB: A Distributed Social Media Application Using NDN

Requirements

Major Requirements

• Named Data Networking Forwarding Daemon NFD
• Electron js
• Node.js
• ndn-js
• electron-db
• Active Internet Connection

Other Requirements

• Bootstrap V4
• Jquery (V >= 3.2)
• ShellJS - Unix shell commands for Node.js

Installation Process

Before executing the application, all the major requirements needs to be installed properly

1. Installing NFD

   • Well-documented installation guides are available on the following links
   • Getting Started With NFD
   • http://named-data.net/doc/NFD/current/INSTALL.html
   • Once you install NFD correctly you can test it using following few commands
   • nfd-start - to start NFD, nfd-stop - to kill NFD, nfdc status, nfdc fib, nfdc routes
   • IMPORTANT: NFD is required to execute the application, it should be up and running

2. Installing Node and Electron

• Installing Node

  • node is required to execute .js file in local env
    • e.g. node xyz.js
  • Node installation guide for MAC: https://nodejs.org/en/download/
  • Node installation guide for Linux: https://nodejs.org/en/download/package-manager/#debian-and-ubuntu-based-linux-distributions
    • Note: apt-get install old version of node, make sure to follow the instruction above.

• Installing Electron

  • Follow the Github Instruction to install electro https://github.com/electron/electron-api-demos/blob/master/README.md

• Installing ndn-js

  • Download ndn-js from https://github.com/named-data/ndn-js
  • Have it somewhere on the desktop, better inside the application folder itself. We will use its path on the application

3. Installing the APP BIRB

   • Unzip the folder BIRB-master.zip or
   • $ git clone https://github.com/dulalsaurab/BIRB.git
   • $ cd BIRB
   • Open "./lib/nfd_operations.js" file and provide the path of ndn-js (downloaded above) on path variable “path-ndn”
   • $ npm install
   • $ npm start

Screenshots

4. References

[1] https://github.com/named-data/NFD
[2] https://named-data.net/
[3] https://github.com/named-data/ndn-js
[4] https://electronjs.org/
[5] https://github.com/jvadillo/twitter-bootstrap