find-peers

A module to find nodes on a network, establish secure communication channels, execute code and much much more.

NOTE: v3.0 will depreciate http/s, socket.io, hashed key exchange.

Features

• Communication channels after node discovery

• Node monitoring via a local web server

• Complete control over node & remote access terminals

• Scale and execute code on connected peers (Javascript through Node.js VM or binary executables through Child Process)

• File transfers & file synchronisation

• Sync with a node list on a server

• Automatically refresh node status every N seconds

• Interact through emitted events, RXJS or promises

• Communication through TCP, HTTP, TLS, HTTPS or socket.io

• Definable master-slave sub networks / nodes

• 6 Authentication levels:

• No authentication (0)

• Hashed key exchange (1)

• Encrypted key (2)

• Generated key exchange (RSA, ec, x448) etc. (3)

• End to end encryption (4)

• Middle man server communication (5)

Installation

npm i find-peers --save

Installation notes

Socket.io

To use find-peers in Socket.io mode install it first.

npm i socket.io-client
npm i socket.io

node-forge

To automatically generate self signed SSL certificates at runtime node-forge must be installed.

npm i node-forge

Quick usage

Import it

const { FindPeers } = require('find-peers');

Basic config

const options = { autoGenId: true };

Create instance

const find = new FindPeers(options);

Listen for events

  find.on('found-nodes', (data) => {
      // new discovered nodes
  });
  find.on('server_up', () => {
      console.log('server is up!');
  });
  find.on('server_err', (err) => {
      console.log(err);
  });
  find.on('multicast_err', (err) => {
      console.log(err);
  });
  find.on('echo', (data) => {
      console.log(data.message, 'from', data.from.id);
  });

Config options

Property	Description	Default value
autoGenId	Automatically generate a 32 word random id	false
identity	Set node details: id, bind to ip etc.	undefined
securityLevel	Security mode of the library to be used	4
verifyTries	Number of times to attempt to verify a node during initial pairing	3
tryTime	Timeout limit	10000
hashOptions	Options passed to argon 2 as per argon2.Options from node-argon2 ( 1 )	{ hashLength: 32, memoryCost: 2**16, parallelism: 1, type: argon2.argon2i }
modLength	Length of generated RSA key ( 3 )	2048
keyGenGroup	Algorithm for key generation ( 3 )	rsa
aesVersion	Type of aes-256 to be used ( 2 - 4 )	aes-256-cbc
oaepHash	Hash to use alongside pbkdf2	sha-256
groupName	Mod group to use in Diffie - Hellman exchange	modp15
autoStartSearch	Automatically start searching for nodes as soon as object is created	true
serverType	Server type to be used for communication after node discovery	tcp
serverPort	Server port	19235
multicastPort	Multicast port	18235
broadCastInterval	Interval at which to send out multicast	500
multiCastTimeout	Duration of node search	60000
multiCastReSearch	Automatically re - search for nodes	300000
shouldReSearch	Enable re - search	false
searchForever	Disable multiCastTimeout and re - search	false
shouldPing	Ping nodes to veriy if still active	false
pingInterval	Interval to ping nodes at	1000
pingCount	Number of failed ping attempts before marked as disconnect	20
temporaryDisconnect	Number of failed ping attempts before marked as temporary disconnect	10
pingMIA	Number of seconds between ping reponses to be marked as temporary disconnect	25000
pingLimit	Number of failed ping attempts before reconnection attempts are stopped	100
whiteList	Array of nodes (by ip or id) to be whitelisted from ping	undefined
blackList	Array of nodes (by ip or id) to be blacklisted from connections	undefined
privateServerKey	Private key for https, tls server or Socket.io https server	undefined
certificate	Certificate / public key for https, tls server or Socket.io https server	undefined
genKeypair	Automatically generate an SSL key pair (private key, certificate) for use with https, tls or Socket.io https server using node-forge	false
attrs	Attributes passed for SSL key pair generation (country name, address, organization name, etc...)	[{ name : 'commonName' , value : 'example.org' } , { name : 'countryName' , value : 'US' } , { shortName : 'ST' , value : 'Virginia' } , { name : 'localityName' , value : 'Blacksburg' } , { name : 'organizationName' , value : 'Test' } , { shortName : 'OU' , value : 'Test' }]
socketIOOptions	Options to be used with Socket.io server	{ path:'/', mode:'http' }

Functions

Function	Description	Arguments
getClients	Get entire list of verified nodes	void
echo	Send a message to all nodes	message: string, omit ?: string[]
messageClient	Send message to a specific node	id: string, message: string
getIdentity	Get identity object of current node	void