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!
brew install --HEAD homebrew/head-only/urbit
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).
First, install all our external dependencies. Then, make.
urbit depends on:
gcc (or clang)
gmp
libsigsegv
openssl
automake
autoconf
ragel
cmake
re2c
libtool
libssl-dev (Linux only)
ncurses (Linux only)
sudo apt-get install libgmp3-dev libsigsegv-dev openssl libssl-dev libncurses5-dev git make exuberant-ctags automake autoconf libtool g++ ragel cmake re2c
sudo dnf install gcc gcc-c++ git gmp-devel openssl-devel openssl ncurses-devel libsigsegv-devel ctags automake autoconf libtool ragel cmake re2c
sudo yum --enablerepo epel install gcc gcc-c++ git gmp-devel openssl-devel ncurses-devel libsigsegv-devel ctags automake autoconf libtool cmake re2c
brew install git gmp libsigsegv openssl libtool autoconf automake cmake
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.
pkg install git gmake gmp libsigsegv openssl automake autoconf ragel cmake re2c libtool
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.
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.
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.
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),
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.
^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.
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
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>
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.
Your urbit is a web server. localhost:8080 is the default. If that is taken, you may want to try localhost:8081.
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.
Try going to http://localhost:8080/home/pub/talk/fab to talk via
a web interface. Note that for the time being the login code is
output to your console (e.g. code='laslyt-mocwyd-hobmyn-rolbyl'
)
it's not the same as your planet ticket.
The first step in contributing to urbit is to come and join us on
:talk
.
For more detailed instructions check out
contributing.md
,.