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Audit Intro & What is libp2p #176

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06df599
update intro and merge what is libp2p + edits
salmad3 Sep 1, 2022
e6aafde
move community info to own section
salmad3 Sep 1, 2022
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address PR feedback
salmad3 Sep 6, 2022
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salmad3 Sep 6, 2022
78c6274
generalize ref to js interface to specs
salmad3 Sep 6, 2022
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salmad3 Sep 7, 2022
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clarify transports
salmad3 Sep 7, 2022
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11 changes: 11 additions & 0 deletions content/community/_index.md
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title: "Community"
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Get in touch with other members of the libp2p community who are building tools and applications with libp2p! You can ask questions, discuss new ideas, or get support for problems at [libp2p discussion forums](https://discuss.libp2p.io/), but you can also [hop on IRC](/community/irc/) for a quick chat.

See the other links in the community section for more information about meetings, events, apps people are building, and more.

Information about contributing to libp2p and about other software projects in the community are also hosted here.
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title: "Concepts"
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title: "Core Components"
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title: Contributing
title: "Get Involved"
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Expand All @@ -9,9 +9,7 @@ of things we need help with and how you can get started. Even if what you want
to do is not listed here, we probably accept contributions for it! If you're
unsure, please open a issue.


## Areas of contribution

- [Areas of contribution](#areas-of-contribution)
- [Code](#code)
- [Documentation](#documentation)
Expand All @@ -24,7 +22,6 @@ unsure, please open a issue.
- [Protocol Design](#protocol-design)
- [Research](#research)


### Code

libp2p and its sister-projects are *big,* with lots of code written in
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title: Introduction
title: "Introduction"
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---

Welcome to the libp2p documentation portal! Whether you’re just learning how to build peer-to-peer systems with libp2p, want to dive into peer-to-peer concepts and solutions, or are looking for detailed reference information, this is the place to start.
Welcome to the official libp2p documentation hub!

## Overview
Whether you’re just starting to dive into peer-to-peer concepts and
solutions, learning how to build peer-to-peer systems with libp2p, or
are looking for detailed reference information, this is the place to
start.

Head over to [What is libp2p?](/introduction/what-is-libp2p/) for an introduction to the basics of libp2p and an overview of the problems it addresses.
## What is libp2p?

libp2p is a modular system of *protocols*, *specifications* and *libraries*
that enable the development of peer-to-peer network applications.

## Tutorials
**A p2p networking stack**

If you want to dive in, check out our collection of [tutorials](/tutorials/), which will help guide you through your explorations of libp2p.
Because of libp2p's peer-to-peer and distributed architecture, most of the
needs and considerations that the current web was built on no longer apply.
The internet, such as it is, with firewalls and NATs, was designed to [securely]
provide data by relying on trust assumptions. There are many distributed
peer-to-peer network models with different challenges and tradeoffs that try
to improve on the way we network. Libp2p aims to be a modular, general-purpose
toolkit for any peer-to-peer application.

## Examples
## Peer-to-peer basics

If you want to get a feel for what's possible with libp2p, or just want to see some idiomatic usage, check out the [examples](/examples/). Each libp2p implementation maintains a set of working example projects that can illustrate key concepts and use cases.
Let's start with what a peer-to-peer network application is:

## Reference
A [peer-to-peer network][definition_p2p] is one in which the participants
(referred to as [peers][definition_peer]) communicate directly with one another
on a relative "equal footing". This does not mean that all peers are identical
as some may have different roles in the overall network. However, one of the
defining characteristics of a peer-to-peer network is that the network does not
require a privileged set of "servers" which behave completely differently from
their "clients", as is the case in the predominant
[client / server model][definition_client_server].

### Specifications & Planning
Because the definition of peer-to-peer networking is quite broad, many different
kinds of systems have been built that all fall under the umbrella of "peer-to-peer".
The most culturally prominent examples are likely file-sharing networks like BitTorrent,
and, more recently, the proliferation of blockchain networks that communicate in a
peer-to-peer fashion.

While libp2p has several implementations, it is fundamentally a set of protocols for peer identity, discover, routing, transport and more.
### What problems can libp2p solve?

See the [specifications section](/reference/specs/) for details.
While peer-to-peer networks have many advantages over the client-server model,
there are unique challenges that require careful thought and practice to overcome.

### Implementations
libp2p lets all users preserve their network identity, overcome network censorship,
and communicate over different transport protocols.

At the core of libp2p is a set of [specifications](/reference/specs/), which together form the definition for what libp2p is in the abstract and what makes a "correct" libp2p implementation. Today, implementations of libp2p exist in several languages, with varying degrees of completeness. The most complete implementations are in [Go](/reference/go/), [JavaScript](/reference/js/), and [Rust](https://github.com/libp2p/rust-libp2p).
In overcoming these challenges while building [IPFS](https://ipfs.io),
we took care to build our solutions in a modular, composable way into what is
now libp2p. Although libp2p grew out of IPFS, it is not dependent on IPFS, and
today, [many projects][built_with_libp2p] use libp2p as their networking layer.

In addition to the implementations above, the libp2p community is actively working on implementations in [python](https://github.com/libp2p/py-libp2p) and [the JVM via Kotlin](https://github.com/web3j/libp2p). Please check the project pages for each implementation to see its status and current state of completeness.
Together, we can leverage our collective experience and solve these foundational
problems in a way that benefits an entire ecosystem of developers and a world of users.

Here, we'll briefly outline the main problem areas that libp2p attempts to address.
This is an ever-growing space, so don't be surprised if things change over time.
If you notice something missing or have other ideas for improving this documentation,
please [reach out to let us know][help_improve_docs].

## Community
### Data transmission

Get in touch with other members of the libp2p community who are building tools and applications with libp2p! You can ask questions, discuss new ideas, or get support for problems at [libp2p discussion forums](https://discuss.libp2p.io/), but you can also [hop on IRC](/community/irc/) for a quick chat.
The transport layer is at the foundation of libp2p, which is responsible for
transmitting and receiving bytes between two peers. There are many
ways to send data across networks in use today, including TCP, QUIC, WebSocket,
WebTransport and WebRTC, with some still in development and others still yet
to be designed.
Comment thread
salmad3 marked this conversation as resolved.

See the other links in the community section for more information about meetings, events, apps people are building, and more.
libp2p also provides a list of specifications [specifcations](https://github.com/libp2p/specs)
that can be adapted to support existing and future protocols, allowing libp2p applications
to operate in many different runtime and networking environments.

Information about contributing to libp2p and about other software projects in the community are also hosted here.
### Peer identity

Knowing who you're talking to is key to secure and reliable communication in a world
with billions of networked devices. libp2p uses
[public key cryptography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_cryptography)
as the basis of peer identity, which serves two complementary purposes.

### Get Involved
1. It gives each peer a globally unique "name", in the form of a
[PeerId][definition_peerid].
2. The `PeerId` allows anyone to retrieve the public key for the identified
peer, which enables secure communication between peers.

libp2p is an open-source community project. While [Protocol Labs](https://protocol.ai) is able to sponsor some of the work around it, much of the design, code, and effort is contributed by volunteers and community members like you. If you’re interested in helping improve libp2p, check the [contributing](/contributing/) guide to get started.
### Secure communication

If you are diving in to contribute new code, make sure you check both the [contribution guidelines](https://github.com/libp2p/community/blob/master/CONTRIBUTE.md) and the style guide for your language ([Go](https://github.com/ipfs/community/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING_GO.md), [JavaScript](https://github.com/ipfs/community/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING_JS.md)).
There needs to be a method to securely send and receive data between peers,
where peers are able to trust the [identity](#peer-identity) of the peer they're
communicating with while ensuring that no external entity can access or tamper with
the communication.

All libp2p connections are encrypted and authenticated. Some [transport protocol](#transport)
protocols are encrypted at the transport layer (e.g. QUIC). For other protocols, libp2p runs
a cryptographic handshake on top of an unencrypted connection (e.g. TCP).

### Related Projects
For secure communication channels, libp2p currently supports
[TLS 1.3](https://www.ietf.org/blog/tls13/) and [Noise](https://noiseprotocol.org/),
though not every language implementation of libp2p supports both of these.

libp2p began as part of the [IPFS](https://ipfs.io) project, and is still an essential component of IPFS. As such, libp2p composes well with the abstractions and tools provided by other projects in the IPFS "family". Check their individual sites for specific information and references:
> (Older versions of libp2p may support a
> [deprecated](https://blog.ipfs.io/2020-08-07-deprecating-secio/) protocol called SECIO;
> all projects should switch to TLS 1.3 or Noise instead.)

- [IPFS](https://libp2p.io) is the InterPlanetary File System, which uses libp2p as its networking layer.
### Peer routing

When you want to send a message to another peer, you need two key pieces
of information: their [PeerId][definition_peerid], and a way to locate them
on the network to open a connection.

There are many cases where we only have the `PeerId` for the peer we want to
contact, and we need a way to discover their network address. Peer routing is
the process of discovering peer addresses by leveraging the knowledge of other
peers.

In a peer routing system, a peer can either give us the address we need if they
have it, or else send our inquiry to another peer who's more likely to have the
answer. As we contact more and more peers, we not only increase our chances of
finding the peer we're looking for, we build a more complete view of the network
in our own routing tables, which enables us to answer routing queries from others.

The current stable implementation of peer routing in libp2p uses a
[distributed hash table][definition_dht] to iteratively route requests closer
to the desired `PeerId` using the [Kademlia][wiki_kademlia] routing algorithm.

### Content discovery

In some systems, we care less about who we're speaking with than what they can offer us.
For example, we may want some specific piece of data, but we don't care who we get it from
since we can verify its integrity.

libp2p provides a [content routing specification][spec_content_routing] for this
purpose, with the primary stable implementation using the same
[Kademlia][wiki_kademlia]-based DHT as used in peer routing.

### Peer messaging

Sending messages to other peers is at the heart of most peer-to-peer systems,
and pubsub (short for publish/subscribe) is an instrumental pattern for sending
a message to groups of interested receivers.

libp2p defines a [pubsub specification][spec_pubsub] for sending messages to all
peers subscribed to a given "topic". The specification currently has two stable
implementations; `floodsub` uses a very simple but inefficient "network flooding"
strategy, and [gossipsub](https://github.com/libp2p/specs/tree/master/pubsub/gossipsub)
defines an extensible gossip protocol. There is also active development in progress on
[episub](https://github.com/libp2p/specs/blob/master/pubsub/gossipsub/episub.md), an
extended `gossipsub` that is optimized for single source multicast and scenarios with a
few fixed sources broadcasting to a large number of clients in a topic.

Head over to [What is libp2p?](/introduction/what-is-libp2p/) for an introduction to
the basics of libp2p and an overview of the problems it addresses.

## Related projects

libp2p began as part of the [IPFS](https://ipfs.io) project and is still an
essential component of IPFS. As such, libp2p composes well with the abstractions
and tools provided by other projects in the IPFS "family". Check their sites for
specific information and references:

- [IPFS](https://libp2p.io) is the InterPlanetary File System, which uses libp2p as
its networking layer.
- [Multiformats](https://multiformats.io) is a variety of *self-describing* data formats.
- [IPLD](https://ipld.io) is a set of tools for describing links between content-addressed data, like IPFS files, Git commits, or Ethereum blocks.
- [The Permissive License Stack](https://protocol.ai/blog/announcing-the-permissive-license-stack) is a licensing strategy for software development that embraces open-source values.
- [IPLD](https://ipld.io) is a set of tools for describing links between content-addressed
data, like IPFS files, Git commits, or Ethereum blocks.
- [The Permissive License Stack](https://protocol.ai/blog/announcing-the-permissive-license-stack)
is a licensing strategy for software development that embraces open-source values.

[glossary]: {{< ref "/reference/glossary.md" >}}
[definition_dht]: {{< ref "/reference/glossary.md#dht" >}}
[definition_p2p]: {{< ref "/reference/glossary.md#p2p" >}}
[definition_peer]: {{< ref "/reference/glossary.md#peer" >}}
[definition_peerid]: {{< ref "/reference/glossary.md#peerid" >}}
[definition_secio]: {{< ref "/reference/glossary.md#secio" >}}
[definition_muiltiaddress]: {{< ref "/reference/glossary.md#multiaddr" >}}
[definition_client_server]: {{< ref "/reference/glossary.md#client-server" >}}

[spec_content_routing]: https://github.com/libp2p/specs/blob/master/kad-dht/README.md
[spec_pubsub]: https://github.com/libp2p/specs/blob/master/pubsub/README.md
[built_with_libp2p]: https://discuss.libp2p.io/c/ecosystem-community
[help_improve_docs]: https://github.com/libp2p/docs/issues
[wiki_kademlia]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kademlia
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