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Your responsibility as an entrance operator

An entrance lets people into Unseenet from the open web. It carries their connections; it does not store what they write. That is a different role from a node's, and worth thinking about before you open one to strangers.

What the entrance does to make this easier

  • It holds nothing. No posts, no groups, no vaults, no keys. Everything a visitor reads and writes is on the nodes and in their own browser.
  • It cannot read or change anything. Posts are signed in the browser and checked there; closed groups and private posts are encrypted end to end. The entrance only copies bytes between the browser and a node's onion service.
  • It logs nothing about visitors. No access log, no error that names an address; limits are counted in memory under a key made at start (UN-RFC 0043 section 5). install.sh keeps the system journal in memory only, unless you say JOURNAL=keep.
  • It only goes to known nodes, unless you set ENTRANCE_NODES=any.

What you should know

  • You see visitors' IP addresses, for as long as they are connected. That is the price of the open web, and visitors are told it (the bar at the top, and What you give up). Do not add logging, analytics or a CDN in front: they would keep what the entrance is built not to keep.
  • You serve code. The web client you serve is the project's signed build; leave automatic updates on, or check new versions yourself. Never change the files you serve: apps warn about anything that is not signed.
  • Say who you are. Set ENTRANCE_OPERATOR and ENTRANCE_CONTACT, so visitors and other operators can reach you.
  • Know the law where you live, and where your machine is. Carrying encrypted connections for others is treated differently from country to country. Unseenet's design reduces the risk; it does not remove your responsibility.
  • Problems with what people post belong to the nodes that carry it, the groups' owners and moderators, and the hierarchy maintainers - see a node's responsibility. An entrance has no posts to remove, and by default it tunnels only to the project's list of known nodes, which must follow the rules for listed nodes.