Urbit

Urbit is a clean-slate system software stack. It's patent-free and MIT licensed. It runs its own encrypted P2P network over UDP.

At present urbit is under heavy development. It's not useful for any external purpose. Documentation is completely inadequate. Anyone can try the interpreter, of course, but the network is officially invitation-only.

If you're interested in keeping in touch or following the project you can:

• Give us your email address 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!

Install 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 outgoing HTTPS requests only work on Stretch; I wish we knew why; if you have an idea why or just think you can help, please let us know).

Install by hand

First, install all our 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

Build instructions

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 in place.

Create your urbit

Urbit is a semi-decentralized P2P network. So you may or may not have an invitation.

If you have an invitation, it's a ticket that lets you create a 32-bit Urbit plot, aka planet. If you don't have an invitation, you have to create a 128-bit plot, aka comet.

As a comet, you're not necessarily a bad person. But you could be anyone, so you have zero reputation. You have no official access to any Urbit services. Any connectivity you may enjoy could be shut off at any time. And probably will be.

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

If you don't, pick a nickname for your comet, like mycomet. Urbit will randomly generate a 128-bit address, but

urbit -c mycomet

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

Note that Urbit is a P2P network that runs over random UDP ports; some firewalls may not like it. Urbit without connectivity isn't useless, but it can't boot without the network.

But however horribly hacked, the urbit process can only read and write inside the fintud-macrep or mycomet directory, which we call your pier. A pier is portable; any Urbit install on any OS can execute the same pier.

In the pier directory is a set of user-level mount points. Mount points are synced Dropbox style, with Unix file changes autocommitted to the Urbit revision control system (%clay) and vice versa. You edit Urbit code with vim and emacs, or whatever.

Also within the pier is a system directory, .urb, which contains an event log (egz.hope), a checkpoint (.chk), and I/O directories for uploads and downloads (put and get). You can compact the pier by deleting the checkpoint, although that means Urbit needs to re-execute its entire event history. This will take some time. Go have a beer.

When it's created (and before it calls chroot()), your urbit creates a passcode file, with a name like ~posluc-darnup, in ~/.urbit. If you want to encrypt the checkpoint and log, delete this file; Urbit will prompt you for its contents. Please be warned that Urbit is not at present secure in any way!

Wait until you see a prompt, like

  ~fintud-macrep:talk>

and then press ^D to quit. Your urbit is born.

Execute

To restart your urbit, run with the pier name:

urbit fintud-macrep
urbit mycomet

Your Urbit is a database, at least in theory. You can kill the process however you like, and it won't lose state. In theory. In practice, this works better on OS X than Linux. Also, don't let your filesystem run out of disk!

Out of the box, your urbit is running two default appliances, :dojo (a shell or REPL) and :talk. Switch between them with ^X. Note that all apps share an output log, but ^X switches the prompt.

^D from any default appliance exits the urbit process.

Learn more

Your urbit is a web server, so the best place to read about it is in your browser.

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

http: live (insecure) on 8080

8080 is the default. If you're running on AWS or another cloud service, this port may be firewalled; go to the firewall configuration to open it. In a last resort, you can use our server, doznec.urbit.org.

Or just talk

Use ^X to get into :talk, and From :talk,

~

Doing more

To test the dojo, run Doing more

From either of the core

directory. Your pier (all Urbit state, log and checkpoint) will be in ./fintud-macrep. The format is portable. Doing rm -r fintud-macrep/.urb/chk will delete the checkpoint, meaning all your events need to be recomputed, but making the image smaller.

bin/urbit fintud-macrep

Run (without a network invitation)

To create a comet (128-bit urbit) in the Unix directory mycomet:

bin/urbit -c mycomet

This will take a little while. Go smoke a bowl.

This process can only read and write files within mycomet.

To quit Urbit (without destroying any data, since Urbit is a database): ^D.

To start your comet again, omit the -c flag:

bin/urbit mypier

Learn these two control keys first: ^D to quit Urbit (from either of the two core applications),

Basics

^v will switch between the task manager and the focussed process. ^x will switch between processes.

To start a process that is not yet started, run *proc from the task manager.

To connect your console to a process that has already been started, run +proc from the task manager. Note that the process must be one that supports console access, such as dojo and talk.

^d will exit the pier from the task manager. No matter how you shut your urbit down you'll be returned to exactly the same state as when you turned it off.

Talk

If you're on the network, you can use its most basic application, talk.

If talk is not running, start it with *talk from the task manager.

Use ^x to switch to the talk prompt and then run

;join ~doznec/urbit-meta

to join the urbit-meta channel. People in there are helpful.

There are three main talk commands:

;join ~urbit-name/channel

;join subscribes your main feed to a remote channel.

;<number>

;<number> activates a previous message number, like a URL that got clipped.

;<target>

;<target> sets the target for your messages, such as ;~urbit-name for a private message.

Filesystem Sync

The Urbit filesystem, %clay doesn't automatically sync to unix. If you'd like to browse the contents of your Urbit from unix you'll need to use |mount.

|mount creates a mirror in unix of files from %clay that is always watching for changes. To sync your entire home/ desk run:

|mount %

you should see a directory called home/ get created inside your pier. When you change files in this directory the changes will get synced into your urbit.

Since each mount point is always watching for changes you may also want to unmount from time to time.

The full syntax is as follows (from dojo):

|mount <path-in-clay> [<mount-name>]

The <mount-name> is optional and defaults to the last part of the <path-in-clay>.

|unmount <mount-name>

or:

|unmount <path-in-clay>

Sysadmin

For the most part, updates to the system are automatically synced to your urbit across the network.

When we make updates to the interpreter you should be able to shut down your urbit and:

git pull origin master
make
bin/urbit pier

where pier is the name of your pier.

While the network is still young from time to time we reboot the entire universe. We call this a 'continuity breach' since we're breaking the continuity of our crypto.

When this happens you'll need to back up your data and start a fresh pier. Your original ticket will still work.

Contributing

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

For more detailed instructions check out contributing.md,.