I am running ZeroNet in background on my Mac

Since when I was little, I always loved peer-to-peer technologies… I even tried to create a GNU/Linux distribution based on that. .. but recently I have discovered a brilliant project that is combining the power of asynchronous cryptography, using Bitcoin private and public keys, with BitTorrent technology. This project is called ZeroNet and it is a new and interesting way to provide websites and real-time services in a p2p network.

To join the network and browse the ZeroNet websites, now you have to keep running a python software in one of your terminal. I really hate to keep it opened 24h a day… even if I am nerd enough to love logs. I decided to run an instance of ZeroNet in background on my Mac: every time I turn on my computer, I am updating and seeding content. I feel happy to help this community 👍 Here is how I made it possible.

First, I have created a launchd daemon. So I cloned the github project repository in my home directory (~/ZeroNet).

cd ~ ; git clone https://github.com/HelloZeroNet/ZeroNet.git

Then after that I have created the launchd daemon by editing the file:

nano ~/Library/LaunchAgents/io.zeronet.plist

And adding the following content, of course replacing /Users/koalalorenzo with your own home path:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
  <dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>io.zeronet</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
      <string>/Users/koalalorenzo/ZeroNet/start.sh</string>
    </array>
    <key>EnvironmentVariables</key>
    <dict>
      <key>HOME</key>
      <string>/Users/koalalorenzo/ZeroNet</string>
      <key>STNORESTART</key>
      <string>1</string>
    </dict>
    <key>KeepAlive</key>
    <true/>
  </dict>
</plist>

I have then added a new script able to update the repository and run the server. So I have edited a second file:

nano ~/ZeroNet/start.sh

Adding in it the following simple code:

#!/bin/bash
cd /Users/koalalorenzo/ZeroNet/
git pull
sleep 5
/usr/bin/python /Users/koalalorenzo/ZeroNet/zeronet.py

Then I had to change the permissions of the file so the Daemon would run it:

chmod +x ~/ZeroNet/start.sh

The only thing missing was to launch it! So I had to activate the Daemon on launchd by running the following commands:

launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/io.zeronet.plist

Once loaded, because I had every dependencies installed and it was running already before, the daemon works without errors, allowing me to browse to ZeroNet, without having a terminal opened. :)