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So you want to start work on I2P? Great! Here's a quick guide to getting started on contributing to the website or the software, doing development or creating translations.

Not quite ready for coding? Try getting involved first.

  1. Basic study
  2. Getting the I2P code
  3. Building I2P
  4. Development ideas
  5. Making the results available
  6. Get to know us!
  7. Translations
  8. Tools

Basic 'study'

Basic development on the I2P router or the embedded applications uses Java as the main development language. If you don't have experience with Java, you can always have a look at Thinking in Java.

Study the how intro, the other "how" documents, the tech intro, and associated documents. These will give you a good overview of how I2P is structured and what different things it does.

Getting the I2P code

For development on the i2p router or the embedded applications, get the monotone source repository installed - short instructions:

Remarks

To download the website files instead of the I2P source files, use 'i2p.www' instead of 'i2p.i2p'.

The initial pull may take several hours using the tunnel. If it fails after a partial pull, simply rerun it, it will start where it left off. If you are in a hurry, use the non-anonymous access.

A full list of branches, including i2p.i2p and i2p.www can be found on viewmtn.

A long explanation about using monotone is available on the monotone page.

Building I2P

To compile the code, you need the Sun Java Development Kit 6 or higher, or equivalent JDK (Sun JDK 6 strongly recommended) and Apache ant version 1.7.0 or higher. If you go are working on the main I2P code, you can go into the i2p.i2p directory and run 'ant' to see the build options.

To build or work on console translations, you need the xgettext, msgfmt, and msgmerge tools from the GNU gettext package.

For development on new applications, see the application development guide.

Development ideas

See zzz's TODO lists, this website's TODO list or Trac for ideas.

Making the results available

See the bottom of licenses.html for commit privilege requirements. You need these to put code into i2p.i2p (not required for the website!).

Short version of how to generate and use keys if you plan to commit:

Long version: see the monotone page.

Get to know us!

The developers hang around on IRC. They can be reached on the Freenode network, OFTC, and on the I2P internal networks. The usual place to look is #i2p-dev. Join the channel and say hi! We also have additional guidelines for regular developers.

Translations

Website and router console translators: See the New Translators Page for next steps.

Tools

I2P is open source software that is mostly developed using open sourced toolkits. The I2P project recently acquired a license for the YourKit Java Profiler. Open source projects are eligible to receive a free license provided that YourKit is referenced on the project web site. Please get in touch if you are interested in profiling the I2P codebase.

YourKit is kindly supporting open source projects with its full-featured Java Profiler. YourKit, LLC is the creator of innovative and intelligent tools for profiling Java and .NET applications. Take a look at YourKit's leading software products: YourKit Java Profiler and YourKit .NET Profiler.

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