peer-npm
v0.1.2
Published
A peer-to-peer substitute for npm.
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Maintainers
Readme
peer-npm
an npm-compatible registry backed by peer-to-peer networks
NOTE: Very unstable and mad science-y. Use at your own discretion.
WHY would someone want something like this?
- I want an easy way to use/publish/install packages when I'm offline
- I want to be able to install/share packages /w my friends over LAN
- I want my packages to be available & resistant to censorship & network failure
- I want a fail-safe in case npm Inc ever goes away or is seized by the government
- I want a package manager whose backend is 100% permissively open source
Usage
To be used just like vanilla npm
, but with a subset of commands: install
,
remove
, and publish
.
USAGE:
peer-npm i, install [-S] [-D]
Works like `npm install`. Accepts a peer-npm package name to install from
the swarm.
peer-npm publish
Works like `npm publish`. Publish the current package to the swarm.
Generates a new keypair if one is not already present.
Getting started
Install
With npm installed, run
$ npm install --global peer-npm
Join the swarm
In another window run
$ peer-npm daemon
so that you can download packages from others and share the ones you publish.
Publish a module to the swarm
Let's grab a package from github and try to publish it:
$ cd /tmp
$ git clone https://github.com/noffle/resync-srt
$ cd resync-srt
$ npm install
$ peer-npm publish
+ resync-srt_hyperdrive_c5abee5fd496620499c3d203f15c95d24a51d16ec05dea4a8ab2c88368c296b9
Published 3.1.0
resync-srt
is now in the swarm! The name of the package is made of three
parts, concatenated by underscores: the package name, the peer network its
shared on, and the public key of the publisher.
Install a swarm dependency
Let's make a new package that depends on resync-srt
:
$ cd /tmp
$ mkdir foobar
$ cd foobar
$ npm init
# you'll want to use the package name generated from the last step
$ peer-npm install --save resync-srt_hyperdrive_c5abee5fd496620499c3d203f15c95d24a51d16ec05dea4a8ab2c88368c296b9
If you look in your package.json
you'll see a new section called
swarmDependencies
. This lets peer-npm
know what packages you depend on in
the swarm, but in a way that keeps vanilla npm
working.
In fact, you can have a package in both swarmDependencies
and regular
dependencies
. Using peer-npm
won't break your package for non-peer-npm
users.
How does it work?
peer-npm
pretends to be an npm registry, but running on your local machine.
When you run peer-npm daemon
it runs this registry (and also does the peering
logic).
peer-npm install
is mostly a wrapper for something like npm install
--registry=http://localhost:9000
.
When you publish or try to install a package, peer-npm
looks at its name to
decide whether it is a package from the central npm registry, or from the swarm.
npm packages have a name like field-trip
, whereas swarm packages have a name
like field-trip_hyperdrive_79cf7ecc9baf627642099542b3714bbef
. The part after
the name is the public key of the author. This makes packages resiliant against
impersonation or malicious peers.
peer-npm
can work with different peer networks; right now there is only a
hyperdrive driver, which is the
default.
When you run peer-npm install
it will find other peers with the packages you
want and download them, recursively down the dependency tree. Similarly, when
you run peer-npm publish
, the new package's key is shared amongst other
peer-npm
peers for future discovery.
IRC
Come hang out in #peer-npm
on Freenode to help test and develop!
License
ISC