Urbit

Urbit is a clean-slate system software stack defined as a deterministic computer. An encrypted P2P network, %ames, runs on a functional operating system, Arvo, written in a strict, typed functional language, Hoon, which compiles itself to a combinator interpreter, Nock, whose spec gzips to 340 bytes.

What is this for? Most directly, Urbit is designed as a personal cloud server for self-hosted web apps. It also uses HTTP APIs to manage data stuck in traditional web applications.

More broadly, Urbit's network tackles identity and security problems which the Internet can't easily address. Programming for a deterministic single-level store is also a different experience from Unix programming, regardless of language.

Getting involved

If you're interested in following Urbit, you can:

• Read our documentation at urbit.org
• Subscribe to our newsletter at urbit.org.
• Check out the urbit-dev mailing list.
• Follow @urbit_ on Twitter.
• Hit us up by email, urbit@urbit.org. We're nice!

Code of conduct

Everyone involved in the Urbit project needs to understand and respect our code of conduct, which is: "don't be rude."

Documentation

In-progress documentation can be found at urbit.org/docs.

These docs ship with your urbit. If you're running one locally you can access them at

http://localhost:8080/home/docs

Assuming you're running on port 8080. The port is printed on startup.

Install

Urbit can be installed on most Unix systems. There is no Windows port. Windows is a wonderful OS, we just haven't gotten to it yet. Use a VM.

Configure swap if needed

Urbit wants to map 2GB of memory when it boots up. We won't necessarily use all this memory, we just want to see it. On a normal modern PC or Mac, this is not an issue. On some small cloud virtual machines (Amazon or Digital Ocean), the default memory configuration is smaller than this, and you need to manually configure a swapfile.

To add swap to a DO droplet:

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-add-swap-on-ubuntu-14-04

To add swap on an Amazon instance:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17173972/how-do-you-add-swap-to-an-ec2-instance

Don't spend a lot of time tweaking these settings; the simplest thing is fine.

Install as a package

OS X - Homebrew

brew install --HEAD homebrew/head-only/urbit

Ubuntu or Debian

Third-party packages are available, at:

https://github.com/yebyen/urbit-deb

Urbit is only supported on Jessie onward (but outbound HTTPS requests only work on Stretch; I wish we knew why; help us!)

Hand-build from source

First, install all external dependencies. Then, make.

Dependencies

urbit depends on:

gcc (or clang)
gmp
libsigsegv
openssl
automake
autoconf
ragel
cmake
re2c
libtool
libssl-dev (Linux only)
ncurses (Linux only)

Ubuntu or Debian

sudo apt-get install libgmp3-dev libsigsegv-dev openssl libssl-dev libncurses5-dev git make exuberant-ctags automake autoconf libtool g++ ragel cmake re2c

Fedora

sudo dnf install gcc gcc-c++ git gmp-devel openssl-devel openssl ncurses-devel libsigsegv-devel ctags automake autoconf libtool ragel cmake re2c

AWS

sudo yum --enablerepo epel install gcc gcc-c++ git gmp-devel openssl-devel ncurses-devel libsigsegv-devel ctags automake autoconf libtool cmake re2c

OS X - Homebrew

brew install git gmp libsigsegv openssl libtool autoconf automake cmake

OS X - Macports

sudo port install git gmp libsigsegv openssl autoconf automake cmake

Although automake/autoconf/libtool are generally installed by default, some have reported needing to uninstall and reinstall those three packages, at least with Homebrew. Your mileage may vary.

FreeBSD

pkg install git gmake gmp libsigsegv openssl automake autoconf ragel cmake re2c libtool

Download and make

Clone the repo:

git clone git://github.com/urbit/urbit.git

cd to the directory you just created:

cd urbit

Run make:

make

(On FreeBSD, use gmake instead.)

The executable is bin/urbit. Install it somewhere, or just use it where it is.

Launch

An urbit is a persistent server on the %ames P2P network. You'll create one of these servers now.

If you have an invitation, it's a planet like ~fintud-macrep and a ticket like ~fortyv-tombyt-tabsen-sonres. Run

urbit -w fintud-macrep -t fortyv-tombyt-tabsen-sonres

(You can leave the ~ on, but it annoys some Unix shells.)

If you don't have an invitation, pick a nickname for your comet, like mycomet. Urbit will randomly generate a 128-bit plot:

urbit -c mycomet

Either way, creating your urbit will take some time. Some of this time involves creating keys; some of it involves downloading code over Urbit itself. Go get a cup of coffee. Or a beer.

Wait until you see a prompt, something like

  ~fintud-macrep:talk()

or

  ~fintud-macrep:dojo>

Your urbit is launched! Ladies and gentlemen, we are floating in space.

Relaunch

To use Urbit normally after creating your planet or comet:

urbit fintud-macrep

or

urbit mycomet

Docs

Your urbit is your personal web server. The best place to read its docs is by pointing your browser at it.

Urbit prints the HTTP port it's serving when it starts up:

http: live (insecure) on 8080

8080 is the default. When it's not available we use 8081. Then 8082, and so on. If you're running on AWS or another cloud service, this port may be firewalled; go to the firewall configuration to open it.

(Always run any urbit HTTP server which is even semi-serious inside a reliable, battle-proven frontline server like nginx.)

Urbit's own official planet ~winsen-pagdel is also bound to just plain urbit.org, and hosts the public docs here. (They are, of course, the same as those that ship with your urbit.)

Assuming your Urbit is on localhost:8080, your copy of the docs are at

http://localhost:8080/home/docs

To continue getting setup, start here:

http://localhost:8080/home/docs/user/start

Contributing

The first step in contributing to urbit is to come and join us on :talk.

For more detailed instructions check out CONTRIBUTING.md.