nostream

This is a nostr relay, written in Typescript.

This implementation is production-ready. See below for supported features.

The project master repository is available on GitHub.

Features

NIPs with a relay-specific implementation are listed here.

• NIP-01: Basic protocol flow description
• NIP-02: Contact list and petnames
• NIP-04: Encrypted Direct Message
• NIP-09: Event deletion
• NIP-11: Relay information document
• NIP-11a: Relay Information Document Extensions
• NIP-12: Generic tag queries
• NIP-13: Proof of Work
• NIP-15: End of Stored Events Notice
• NIP-16: Event Treatment
• NIP-20: Command Results
• NIP-22: Event created_at Limits
• NIP-26: Delegated Event Signing
• NIP-28: Public Chat
• NIP-33: Parameterized Replaceable Events
• NIP-40: Expiration Timestamp

Requirements

Standalone setup

• PostgreSQL 14.0
• Redis
• Node v18
• Typescript

Docker setups

• Docker v20.10
• Docker Compose v2.10

Local Docker setup

• Docker Desktop v4.2.0 or newer
• mkcert

WARNING: Docker distributions from Snap, Brew or Debian repositories are NOT SUPPORTED and will result in errors. Install Docker from their official guide ONLY.

Full Guide

• Set up a Paid Nostr relay with Nostream and ZBD by André Neves (CTO & Co-Founder at ZEBEDEE)
• Set up a Nostr relay in under 5 minutes by André Neves (CTO & Co-Founder at ZEBEDEE)

Quick Start (Docker Compose)

Install Docker following the official guide. You may have to uninstall Docker if you installed it using a different guide.

Clone repository and enter directory:

git clone git@github.com:Cameri/nostream.git
cd nostream

Generate a secret with: openssl rand -hex 128 Copy the output and paste it into an .env file:

SECRET=aaabbbccc...dddeeefff
# Secret shortened for brevity

Start:

./scripts/start

or

./scripts/start_with_tor

Stop the server with:

./scripts/stop

Print the Tor hostname:

./scripts/print_tor_hostname

Running as a Service

By default this server will run continuously until you stop it with Ctrl+C or until the system restarts.

You can install as a systemd service if you want the server to run again automatically whenever the system is restarted. For example:

$ nano /etc/systemd/system/nostream.service

# Note: replace "User=..." with your username, and
# "/home/nostr/nostream" with the directory where you cloned the repo.

[Unit]
Description=Nostr TS Relay
After=network.target
StartLimitIntervalSec=0

[Service]
Type=simple
Restart=always
RestartSec=5
User=nostr
WorkingDirectory=/home/nostr/nostream
ExecStart=/home/nostr/nostream/scripts/start
ExecStop=/home/nostr/nostream/scripts/stop

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

And then:

systemctl enable nostream
systemctl start nostream

The logs can be viewed with:

journalctl -u nostream

Quick Start (Standalone)

Set the following environment variables:

DB_URI="postgresql://postgres:postgres@localhost:5432/nostr_ts_relay_test"
DB_USER=postgres

or

DB_HOST=localhost
DB_PORT=5432
DB_NAME=nostr_ts_relay
DB_USER=postgres
DB_PASSWORD=postgres

REDIS_URI="redis://default:nostr_ts_relay@localhost:6379"

REDIS_HOST=localhost
REDIS_PORT=6379
REDIS_USER=default
REDIS_PASSWORD=nostr_ts_relay

Generate a long random secret and set SECRET: You may want to use openssl rand -hex 128 to generate a secret.

SECRET=aaabbbccc...dddeeefff
# Secret shortened for brevity

In addition, if using Zebedee for payments, you must also set ZEBEDEE_API_KEY with an API Key from one of your projects in your Zebedee Developer Dashboard. Contact @foxp2zeb on Telegram or npub1rvg76s0gz535txd9ypg2dfqv0x7a80ar6e096j3v343xdxyrt4ksmkxrck on Nostr requesting access to the Zebedee Developer Dashboard.

Create nostr_ts_relay database:

$ psql -h $DB_HOST -p $DB_PORT -U $DB_USER -W
postgres=# create database nostr_ts_relay;
postgres=# quit

Start Redis and use redis-cli to set the default password and verify:

$ redis-cli
127.0.0.1:6379> CONFIG SET requirepass "nostr_ts_relay"
OK
127.0.0.1:6379> AUTH nostr_ts_relay
Ok

Clone repository and enter directory:

git clone git@github.com:Cameri/nostream.git
cd nostream

Install dependencies:

npm install -g knex
npm install

Run migrations (at least once and after pulling new changes):

NODE_OPTIONS="-r dotenv/config" npm run db:migrate

Create .nostr folder inside nostream project folder and copy over the settings file:

mkdir .nostr
cp resources/default-settings.yaml .nostr/settings.yaml

To start in development mode:

npm run dev

Or, start in production mode:

npm run start

To clean up the build, coverage and test reports run:

npm run clean

Development Quick Start (Docker Compose)

Install Docker Desktop following the official guide. You may have to uninstall Docker on your machine if you installed it using a different guide.

Clone repository and enter directory:

git clone git@github.com:Cameri/nostream.git
cd nostream

Start:

./scripts/start_local

This will run in the foreground of the terminal until you stop it with Ctrl+C.

Tests

Unit tests

Open a terminal and change to the project's directory:

cd /path/to/nostream

Run unit tests with:

npm run test:unit

Or, run unit tests in watch mode:

npm run test:unit:watch

To get unit test coverage run:

npm run cover:unit

To see the unit tests report open .test-reports/unit/index.html with a browser:

open .test-reports/unit/index.html

To see the unit tests coverage report open .coverage/unit/lcov-report/index.html with a browser:

open .coverage/unit/lcov-report/index.html

Integration tests (Docker Compose)

Open a terminal and change to the project's directory:

cd /path/to/nostream

Run integration tests with:

npm run docker:test:integration

And to get integration test coverage run:

npm run docker:cover:integration

Integration tests (Standalone)

Open a terminal and change to the project's directory:

cd /path/to/nostream

Set the following environment variables:

DB_URI="postgresql://postgres:postgres@localhost:5432/nostr_ts_relay_test"

or

DB_HOST=localhost
DB_PORT=5432
DB_NAME=nostr_ts_relay_test
DB_USER=postgres
DB_PASSWORD=postgres
DB_MIN_POOL_SIZE=1
DB_MAX_POOL_SIZE=2

Then run the integration tests:

npm run test:integration

To see the integration tests report open .test-reports/integration/report.html with a browser:

open .test-reports/integration/report.html

To get the integration test coverage run:

npm run cover:integration

To see the integration test coverage report open .coverage/integration/lcov-report/index.html with a browser.

open .coverage/integration/lcov-report/index.html

Configuration

You can change the default folder by setting the NOSTR_CONFIG_DIR environment variable to a different path.

Run nostream using one of the quick-start guides at least once and nostream/.nostr/settings.json will be created. Any changes made to the settings file will be read on the next start.

Default settings can be found under resources/default-settings.yaml. Feel free to copy it to nostream/.nostr/settings.yaml if you would like to have a settings file before running the relay first.

See CONFIGURATION.md for a detailed explanation of each environment variable and setting.

Dev Channel

For development discussions, please use the Nostr Typescript Relay Dev Group.

For discussions about the protocol, please feel free to use the Nostr Telegram Group.

Author

I'm Cameri on most social networks. You can find me on Nostr by npub1qqqqqqyz0la2jjl752yv8h7wgs3v098mh9nztd4nr6gynaef6uqqt0n47m.

Contributors (A-Z)

• Anton Livaja
• Juan Angel
• Kevin Smith
• Saransh Sharma
• swissrouting
• André Neves
• Semisol

License

This project is MIT licensed.