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Radicle

Radicle is a peer-to-peer (p2p) substitute for GitHub. Git is the defacto standard for software development. GitHub has become the worlds largest Git repository for code collaboration. GitHub was purchased by Microsoft in 2018, and since that time, censorship of code repositories has been steadily increasing. Cryptocurrency developers (such as myself) will most likely be censored on GitHub if cryptocurrency gains enough mainstream adoption to threaten the US dollar. Radicle is a solution to this future problem.

Any professional who works with Git, will be familiar with the git command line interface (CLI). Radicle recently released their own radicle-cli CLI that compliments the git CLI.

Getting Started​

Radicle has a getting started guide that introduces the radicle CLI and formaly documents the demo in the video above. The project is still very new and things are constantly changeing and breaking.

Installing radicle-cli​

Below is a summary of how I install radicle-cli on Ubuntu systems:

curl https://europe-west6-apt.pkg.dev/doc/repo-signing-key.gpg | sudo apt-key add -
echo deb https://europe-west6-apt.pkg.dev/projects/radicle-services radicle-cli main | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/radicle-registry.list
sudo apt update
sudo apt install radicle-cli

Stumbling Blocks​

These notes are primarily for posterity. Readers can safely skip this section.

I hit a few snags trying to set up my own development environment. Here are links to the problems and solutions I faced:

Installing radicle-cli on Ubuntu​

Upgrading Git​

I also needed to upgrade the version of git that shipped with Ubuntu. Here's how I was able to do that (source):

sudo apt remove git -y
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:git-core/ppa -y
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install git -y
git --version

Upgrading OpenSSH​

And to commit new code to a radicle repository, I had to upgrade openssh (source). You can check your current version of openssh-server with ssh -V. It should be 8.2p1 or greater.

Here is how I upgraded my version of openssh-server.

ssh -V
sudo apt update
sudo apt install build-essential zlib1g-dev libssl-dev
sudo mkdir /var/lib/sshd
sudo chmod -R 700 /var/lib/sshd/
sudo chown -R root:sys /var/lib/sshd/
wget -c https://cdn.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/OpenSSH/portable/openssh-8.9p1.tar.gz
tar -xzf openssh-8.9p1.tar.gz
cd openssh-8.9p1/
sudo apt install libpam0g-dev libselinux1-dev libkrb5-dev
./configure --with-kerberos5 --with-md5-passwords --with-pam --with-selinux --with-privsep-path=/var/lib/sshd/ --sysconfdir=/etc/ssh
make
sudo apt remove openssh-server
sudo make install
sudo apt install openssh-server
ssh -V

With that, the final version using ssh -V should report 8.9p1.

SSH Agent​

I would occasionally get this error:

  • Authentication failed could not lookup ssh key, is ssh-agent running?

Here is how I fixed that error:

  • ssh-agent

That would display the socket information. The output would look like this:

SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/ssh-XXXXXXMcYzjS/agent.3505; export SSH_AUTH_SOCK;
SSH_AGENT_PID=3506; export SSH_AGENT_PID;
echo Agent pid 3506;

I could then manually set the environment variable:

  • export SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/ssh-XXXXXXMcYzjS/agent.3505

Initializing Radicle​

In order to initialize radicle-cli, you need to make sure you have git v2.34.0 or higher. See the Stumbling Blocks section above to install the latest version of git.

Initialize your radicle user:

  • rad auth --init

Be sure to use the --init flag, as there is currently a bug that will prevent you from being able to make commits it you don't.

Seed Nodes​

Seed nodes are always-on 'servers' that host git repositories. These replace the cloud hosting that GitHub provides. Docker containers for running a seed node are available in the radicle-client-services repo below:

I've customized the repository and set up a seed node for the Permissionless Software Foundation. The goal of this seed node to act as a backup, in case our code is ever censored by GitHub.

You can push code to our seed node with this url:

  • radicle.fullstackcash.nl

Create a New Repository​

The workflow for creating a git repository does not change. If you, like me, work with GitHub primarily, create the new git repository the same way you've always done. After the git repository has been created and added to GitHub, you can then add the repository to Radicle.

  • rad init

This will genderate a DID (decentralized ID) for your respository. This will be used to identify your repository on the radicle network. It will look like this:

  • rad:git:hnrkjsnux9ns5t4famcga7f4r64a1brh99y1o

You can then push your repository with rad push to push it to one of the community nodes supplied by Radicle. The repository can be pushed to the PSF seed node like this:

  • rad push --seed radicle.fullstackcash.nl

Clone a Repository​

Before cloning a repository on Radicle, it's a good idea to run the following commands first:

  • rad auth
  • rad self

With the DID of a repository, you can clone it like this:

  • rad clone rad:git:hnrkjsnux9ns5t4famcga7f4r64a1brh99y1o --seed radicle.fullstackcash.nl

Commiting a Change​

After making a change to a cloned repository, the normal workflow with git is the same. However, when running git commit is when you'll see errors around authentication and OpenSSH. See the Stumbling Blocks section above.

git add -A
git commit -m "commit message"

Pushing the commit should work like this:

  • rad push --seed radicle.fullstackcash.nl

If you did not initialize your user correctly, this is where you'll see a bug.

Reviewing and Merging Changes​

In order to pull changes from the radicle seed node, The URN of the user who pushed the change needs to be known. Changes can be pulled like this:

  • rad track hynfqs458c3whsyb9exnerg7w81hy9za4ogptntc9h84p1s5jfyix4 --seed radicle.fullstackcash.nl

This will create a branch with the changes pushed by the other user, which can be seed by running git branch:

  • peer/trout/master

Differences can be reviewed like this:

  • git diff master..peer/trout/master

And the patch can be merged:

  • git merge peer/trout/master

Mirroring GitHub Repositories​

The main way I'm using Radicle is to create mirrors of my GitHub repositories. This way, if GitHub ever decides to deplatform cryptocurrency developers, I'll already have work-ready repositories backed up on Radicle. Here is the typical workflow I use to add a repository to GitHub.

  • git clone gh-repo && cd gh-repo
  • rad init
  • rad push --seed radicle.fullstackcash.nl
  • rad push --seed willow.radicle.garden