FrequentlyAskedQuestions
Freenet Overview
Q: What is Freenet?
A: Freenet is a large-scale, distributed data-store designed to be highly censorship resilient. Inserting and retrieving data from Freenet is designed to be anonymous too. The idea is to make it as difficult as possible to detect communication over Freenet, and virtually impossible to prove it.
Q: Why is Freenet necessary?
A: The Internet is a huge benefit in allowing people to communicate freely with each other, but it's becoming more and more monitored and even censored. We don't want that. We believe that free speech is vital for a healthy society, and Freenet allows people to communicate anonymously, and can break through forms of Internet censorship that would otherwise deny people their freedom of speech.
Q: Sounds great, but what's with this whole darknet concept?
A: Older versions of Freenet downloaded a public list of Freenet servers and connected to some of them in order to get a new client onto the Freenet network, and then distributed the address of other Freenet nodes once connected. The problem with making these addresses publically available is that an oppressive government can trivially obtain the list and block each and every one with no difficulty whatsoever. That's why Freenet 0.7 works by each node connecting only to people they know and trust, and connections will only work if each node has declared that it trusts the other. For more information, see Darknet.
Q: So do I need to visit an IRC channel to connect to other Freenet nodes?
A: No - now that OpenNet supports seednodes and announcements, trading node references manually is no longer needed to connect to Strangers. If you already know people who run Freenet, see DarkNet.
Q: But I don't want to use opennet - I want a secure connection. How do I do this if I don't know anyone running Freenet?
A: You can't. Opennet is purely a mechanism for finding other Freenet nodes to connect to. Any other method of finding strangers to connect to would be equivalent for this purpose - the people you connect with are still strangers, and you still have no reason to trust them.
Q: Why is all this necessary? Tor manages to exchange references without having to jump through hoops...
A: Well no, actually. For a start, the goals are different - Tor is aimed at anonymous access to Internet services, whereas Freenet allows access to the Freenet data store. Apart from this, Tor is an OpenNet. It works just like Freenet 0.5 did - new nodes download a list of existing nodes and connect to some of them. Just like with any opennet, a oppressive government could download this list and block access to all the nodes on it without breaking a sweat. Tor is trivially blockable - people can find out that you're running it just by looking at a list. In order to tell you're running Freenet, some complex traffic analysis would be required. Yes - it's possible, but it's very expensive.
Technical
Q: Where is my best bet for live support?
A: Live support isn't guaranteed. The help files are here to help, but sometimes assistance needed goes beyond this. If you join us in IRC on the network irc.freenode.net. #freenet-newbie is a channel for all new user and setting up the node related assistance. #freenet is for all other assistance. Please take note that during the middle of the night for Western Europe and Eastern United States, there are less people on IRC. So if you do not receive assistance immediately, please stick around, or check back with us.
Q: How do I update my Freenet node?
A: The preferred method of updating Freenet is the built in update-over-Freenet mechanism. This should be enabled and function automatically by default. If it's not, check the options under the config page. If, for whatever reason, this isn't working, try running the 'update.cmd' (on Windows) or 'update.sh' (unix) script in the Freenet directory. Running this script multiple times won't hurt, so if it fails, try running it again.
Q: Will Freenet work if I have a dynamic IP address?
A: We hope so. There are special mechanisms in Freenet designed to combat the problem of dynamic IP addresses. Provided that you can connect to at least one node, you should be able to locate your other peers. This is quite likely, since most dynamic IPs change infrequently enough for this to work. You can always use a service such as http://www.dyndns.org, and set 'node.ipAddressOverride' to your dyndns hostname, although we hope that this should not be necessary.
Q: I have a domain name or dyndns address for my computer. Can I use that for Freenet to help my nodes connect?
A: Lucky you! Yes, you can! Just go to the config page in the web interface and enter your domain into the 'IP address override' field in the 'node' section. You'll have to enable 'advanced darknet' in the 'fproxy' section to see it. If you want to put your domain name somewhere, put it here rather than in 'temporary IP address hint'.
Q: Will Freenet work through my firewall, or will I have to open a port manually?
A: Freenet uses techniques that try to work around firewalls (UDP hole punching), so we hope that it should work without the need to forward ports manually. If you wish to forward ports to see if your connectivity improves, you need to forward the Freenet Node Protocol (FNP) port - a UDP port which is intentionally different for each node. You can find out what your FNP port is by looking in the 'Friend' page and finding 'Node's Ports'.
Q: How do I connect to other Freenet nodes?
A: See FreenetConnections.
Q: Can I change my node name once my node is set up and has peers?
A: Yes, your node's name is purely cosmetic and is not used to establish a connection. Your existing peers will see your new node name before long.
Q: Where does my node store its Freenet content?
A: In directories, usually in the node's directory, with 'store' in their names. You can safely delete these directories to reset your data store should this become necessary, but doing so will slow down your Freenet browsing experience significantly since no data will be cached, and will also be bad for the network in general.
Q: Where can I find a changelog for Freenet 0.7?
A: All changes to the Freenet 0.7 codebase are logged automatically, you can see commit messages here.
Q: Which factors affect data consistency in Freenet?
A: Too many to mention them all!
Q: What does a "backed off" status of another node mean?
A: It means that the node is temporarily not accepting any requests due to overload (system or bandwidth).
Q: How do I post something, i.e. a web page or a file?
A: Look at CreatingFreenetWebsites and FreenetZeroPointSeven.
Q: Will I be able to browse more freesites on the "Darknet" if I get more connections?
A: There is only one DarkNet, but having more connections should increase the likelihood of your node finding data. Note that too many connections could also cause problems - a maximum of 20 is recommended. Also, having too many disconnected nodes in your list (where you have added other people's node refs without them having added yours) can slow down your connection. On average you want 10 - 15 peers connected at any given time. Having more than 20 connections will slow your node down and mess up freenet's routing. Your node will accept data 4 steps past your peers. At 10 peers this is usually a network of 400 - 500 nodes.
Q: Is it OK to get connections from anybody?
A: You are vulnerable to those with whom you exchange references. Therefore, you should only exchange references with people you trust. At present, however, the darknets are so small, that you are unlikely to trust another user, so provided you are not paranoid, promiscuously exchanging node references is OK. For more information, see DarkNet.
Q: Can I add other users' node refs without them adding mine?
A: You can, but it won't work. Both sides need to add each other's node ref for a connection to be made. If only one side adds a node reference, they will get a disconnected node in their node list. Too many disconnected nodes in your list will hurt performance.
Q: How good is the Freenet 0.7 security? What encryption do you use? Am I safe from The Man?
A: See FreenetZeroPointSevenSecurity.
Q: Can I run Freenet on one computer and access it from another?
A: Certainly! Probably the easiest way of doing this is by editing the options that end with "bindTo" and "allowedHosts". Change "bindTo" to the IP address of the computer that Freenet is running on, as seen by the machine you wish to access it from. Change "allowedHosts" to the address of the machine from which you'd like to access Freenet. Changing "fproxy.allowedHosts" / "fproxy.bindTo" will allow you to access the web interface, and "fcp.[...]" will let you run FCP applications like Frost on your other machine. There's also "console" for those who just can't tear themselves away from text mode.
Q: I'm accessing my node from a remote location but only see a "few" of its functionalities!
A: You might want to modify the following configuration options : "fproxy.allowedHostsFullAccess" and "fcp.allowedHostsFullAccess". Be careful to whom you give full access to your node!
Q: What is the "global queue"?
A: You can have several client applications connect to your Freenet node (for example, Frost, Fuqid, Thaw). Each of these will connect using a different id. An upload or download put onto Freenet's global queue will be visible to all applications. So if you initiated a download with Fuqid, but then later open up Thaw, you will still be able to see the download in the queue. Something that isn't on the global queue will only be visible to an application connecting as the same id. This is purely for convenience, not security, because the connections are expected to be local to your internal network or machine, and aren't encrypted or password-protected.
Q: I have two nodes on the same LAN, they won't connect - how do I fix this?
A: On both nodes:
- Enable Advanced Mode (under fproxy in the config page)
- Enable "Include local addresses in noderef" (under node; won't show up until advanced darknet is enabled).
- Go to the Darknet page, find the node you are trying to connect to, click on the checkbox on the left, and page down to the end of the table. Click on the "Select action" box, select "On selected peers, set allowLocalAddresses", and then click Go.
Q: I get "System Error 1067" when I try to start the node on Microsoft Windows
A: Make sure that there isn't a copy of Freenet already running. You can do this by pointing your browser at your node homepage (http://127.0.0.1:8888/ by default) or checking what processes are running.
Q: The installer told me that I am using a buggy JVM, what can I do?
A: If you are using ubuntu hardy and openjdk, that's a known bug: here is the fix: "sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre && sudo update-alternatives --config java"
Q: If I can't control what information is stored on my computer, how can I be sure the site I upload to Freenet will remain availalbe in its entirety in the future?
A: Try to download it. If you can, then it's available.
Q: Is it possible to "sponsor" content in Freenet?
A: The more a file is downloaded, the more it will be available (mainly thanks to the nodes' caches).
Q: My question is not answered here, is there anywhere else I might find it?
A: You could try InFrequentlyAskedQuestions, if it's not listed there either add it to the list here or there.
A: You could try asking in #freenet at irc.freenode.net maybe refering to a question you posted on this page or InFrequentlyAskedQuestions.
A: You should also try the FAQ on the website.
