Server Installation Guide

This page explains in an easy step by step guide how to fully setup your VPS or server and get the software running for Jericho Comms on Debian 11. Open source is the best way as it's auditable and less likely to contain backdoors. Compiling your own from source code is even safer if you know how to do that. If you do not like Debian, you can use whatever Linux or Unix distribution you want e.g. Ubuntu server, it is really just setting up a Linux, Apache, PostgreSQL & PHP (LAPP) stack and configuring it to serve the API code.

You need approximately 15 minutes of time and some basic computer skills. Be sure to read each step carefully. NB: As a security precaution do not copy and paste commands from the site directly into the terminal. Type them out manually or paste them into a plain text editor like gedit, nano or Notepad first to make sure they are safe and don't contain any unexpected commands.

Table of Contents

1. Sign up for a Virtual Private Server
2. Download and install Debian
3. Connect to your server
4. Uploading the program onto the server
5. Verifying the integrity and authenticity of the file
6. Extracting the server files
7. Running the server installation script
8. Test the server code
9. Summary

Sign up for a Virtual Private Server

There are a number of quality VPS providers around. You will need to do some research on your own. Try finding one that is not in any of the Five Eyes countries (US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand). Perhaps somewhere in Europe with better privacy laws e.g. Finland. Better privacy laws mean they need a proper warrant to hack or shut down your server whereas countries like the UK can just do whatever they want. Some of the other European countries co-operate with the NSA however in a wider spying alliance. So Brazil or Iceland may be a better bet.

You should only need the most basic server in terms of CPU speed, memory and disk space because the software is not resource intensive. Around 10 Euros (11 USD) per month is probably fine. That will get you around 1 CPU core, 512 MB of RAM and 10 GB of disk space which is plenty to run the server software.

Avoid VPS providers that use OpenVZ because each VPS on the same physical server shares the same Linux kernel. That means you cannot have full control over the VPS to keep the system time properly synchronized with an NTP server. KVM based VPSs use their own kernel which gives you much more control.

Alternatively if you want to run your own server on your own network, that is even better. This would be the most secure option as you can administer the server locally. This means one less port open on the public network interface. The client software and server share a 512 bit symmetric API key for authentication of data going back and forth but this must be fetched from the server after installation. When managing the server via the internet, the security is only as secure as the SSH connection. SSH is hard to secure against active MITM attacks unless you are certain of the correct host key fingerprint. For your first connection to the VPS you will not be sure of the server's true fingerprint. You could however try finding it by logging in via the HTTPS web management console or asking your VPS provider directly. Then again they will need to send it to you via encrypted email and you still need to verify their public key somehow. So it ends up being a lot of extra effort. SSH also currently does not have ciphers that are secure against quantum computers.

Download and install Debian

If using a VPS, select one of the pre-made Debian 11 images. The online provider will do all the installation automatically for you and initialise your VPS. Newer versions should still hopefully work fine with this guide.

Otherwise if you're setting up your own server, download the latest version of Debian. Write the image to a CD/DVD/USB drive, then boot from the install image on CD/DVD/USB drive and run through the installation. This should be pretty self explanatory but there are step-by-step guides with screenshots if you Google for them. Make sure your server has a public, static IP address so your group's users can connect to it reliably over the internet.

At the software selection screen be sure to select OpenSSH server so it gets installed and you can log into your server remotely with SSH. SSH will likely be enabled by default on a VPS.

Connect to your server

Assuming your operating system is all installed, you can now log into your VPS/server with SSH. If you are connecting to your server from a Windows machine you should stop what you're doing and install Linux otherwise you risk compromising everything. However it is possible to use PuTTY, for example:



From Linux you can simply use the command line: ssh -p 22 username@ipaddress. Swap out username for the username on your server. You will have created a user account on installation or if using a VPS they probably set up the root account so use that. Swap out ipaddress with the public IP address of your server.

Uploading the program onto the server

Now it's time to install get the server code running. The easiest way to get it onto the server would be to use the command line:
wget https://joshua-m-david.github.io/jerichoencryption/files/jericho-comms-v2.0.0.tar.xz

You also need to download the signature file to verify that the download is authentic:
wget https://joshua-m-david.github.io/jerichoencryption/files/jericho-comms-v2.0.0.tar.xz.asc

This will download the two files and put them inside your current working directory. You can list them with ls -l. If the files are there you can skip to the next step.

If for some reason you are unable to download the files from the website you can always download them from Freenet using the links on the Download page, then copying the files manually to the server. If you want to copy them to the server from your Windows machine you can use WinSCP and connect to your server using the same credentials like you did earlier with PuTTY. Then it's a basic drag and drop operation.

If wanting to transfer the files from your Linux machine to the server you can use the following command:
scp /path/on/local/machine/jericho-comms-v2.0.0.tar.xz username@ipaddress:~

Be sure to swap out username for the username on the server and swap out ipaddress for the IP address of the server. It should prompt you for the password. The ~ character will put the file in the home directory for your account so it will be available as soon as you log into the server. Instead of the ~ character you can swap that for the destination path on the server if you wish e.g. /var/www/html/.

Verifying the integrity and authenticity of the file

It's very important you verify the integrity and authenticity of the downloaded file so you know the file is authentic. Otherwise an attacker could have performed a MITM attack and swapped out the file for one with a backdoor in the encryption code.

Verifying by file hashes

First verify that the file was downloaded correctly using the hashes found on the download page:
sha384sum jericho-comms-v2.0.0.tar.xz | grep "fcdffeb7bbe63db0889b14557084441cf0b1ef34df04db8ad25c529cfbb7392b221847fd2bc0f63ef96a10405f8e07ce"

If the checksum matches it will display the matching hash output on a line on the command line, for example:
fcdffeb7bbe63db0889b14557084441cf0b1ef34df04db8ad25c529cfbb7392b221847fd2bc0f63ef96a10405f8e07ce  jericho-comms-v2.0.0.tar.xz

If nothing is returned on the command line, then the file is a mismatch and you will have to re-download it. You can try downloading it from another source such as FreeNet as well (see the download page for a link).

Verifying by GnuPG signature

This is a stronger method to verify that the download was actually created by us. Otherwise the server could have been hacked and they simply replaced the download links with malware and updated the file hashes. This will be strong enough as proof unless there is a quantum computer available with over 8192 logical qubits to break the 4096 bit RSA key. The key ID for each download is listed on the download page. Import our public key which can be used to verify the file:
gpg --keyserver x-hkp://pool.sks-keyservers.net --recv-keys 0xDC768471C467B6D0

After importing the key you should verify that the key fingerprint is correct with gpg --fingerprint 0xDC768471C467B6D0. You should see:

pub rsa4096/0xDC768471C467B6D0 2013-09-25 [SC] [expires: 2027-04-15]
Key fingerprint = CF3F 79EE 0114 59BA 0A59 9E9C DC76 8471 C467 B6D0
uid [ unknown] Joshua M. David (Jericho Comms 2022+) <joshua [.] m [.] david [at] protonmail [.] com>
sub rsa4096/0xA5A2DFDDBE456DA7 2013-09-25 [E] [expires: 2027-04-15]
Key fingerprint = 6401 CF98 4D37 0AB5 0997 3748 A5A2 DFDD BE45 6DA7


NB: The email addresses have had the parts encased with [] to reduce spam mail. Now run gpg --verify jericho-comms-v2.0.0.tar.xz.asc jericho-comms-v2.0.0.tar.xz to verify the signature. This should give you a message saying Good signature similar to the following:

gpg: Signature made Fri 25 Oct 2024 {time}
gpg: using RSA key CF3F79EE011459BA0A599E9CDC768471C467B6D0
gpg: Good signature from "Joshua M. David (Jericho Comms 2022+) <joshua [.] m [.] david [at] protonmail [.] com>" [unknown]
gpg: WARNING: This key is not certified with a trusted signature!
gpg: There is no indication that the signature belongs to the owner.
Primary key fingerprint: CF3F 79EE 0114 59BA 0A59 9E9C DC76 8471 C467 B6D0


NB: the time has been replaced with {time} as it may appear relative to your timezone. It will also likely show a warning because you have not assigned a trust index to this person. This means that GnuPG verified that the key made that signature, but it's up to you to decide if that key really belongs to the developer. The best method is usually to meet the developer in person and exchange key fingerprints. However, sometimes this is not possible, so you can also check the fingerprint on onename.com/joshua_m_david and keybase.io/joshua_m_david. Both of these identities and fingerprints are published on the Bitcoin blockchain. Do not rely on what you see on the websites alone which is only protected by TLS and can be easily altered in real-time by the Five Eyes agencies. Make sure you download the client apps to verify the public keys on the blockchain. If you can review the source code of those apps, even better.

Extracting the server files

Now you need to extract files from inside the jericho-comms-v2.0.0.tar.xz archive file. This can be done using:
tar -xvf jericho-comms-v2.0.0.tar.xz

That will extract the files into a directory called jericho-comms-v2.0.0 which is in your current working directory.

Running the server installation script

Run the server API software installation script using:
sudo ./jericho-comms-v2.0.0/server/setup.sh

This script is designed to be run on a clean install of the Linux server. It will prompt you a number of simple questions and automate the installation of Apache, PostgreSQL, PHP and the Jericho Comms server API software. It will also harden the installation using some simple firewall rules to block all incoming traffic except HTTP and SSH.

Test the server code

Now you can test the connection to the server. The client program will do that automatically for you. Download the client code onto your PC and verify it using the same method as earlier. Extract the files and in the client directory, open the index.html file in your web browser. From the main menu of the client program, select the Test Server connection option. Now enter the IP address and port, then the server key that are printed at the end of the server installation script:


Now click the Test server connection button. You should see a message saying Server and database connection successful.

If it is still not working, you can try setting the testResponseHeaders key to true in the $applicationConfig array of the /var/www/html/config/config.php file on the server. This enables a more specific error message to be sent back with the HTTP/1.1 200 header response code. The Web Developer console in Firefox can view the error message sent back. This is found under Tools -> Web Developer -> Web Console or simply Ctrl + Shift + K to open it. Once installed, simply press F12 and it will open. Then retry the connection and view the error. That will give you a clue about what needs to be fixed:



If you notice some sort of database error it probably means your database password (in the config.php file) is incorrect. Either that or other database connection details may be incorrect. Basic shared hosting users (non VPS) might also need to edit the UNIX socket and port numbers in the config.php file with settings provided by the hosting provider.

If the error is something about the timestamp being incorrect, perhaps your PC and the server are not synchronized to an NTP server. Try updating both then try again.

If the MAC is incorrect then you likely don't have the same key on the server as the client.

Remember to set the testResponseHeaders key to false once you have resolved the issue, otherwise this leaves clues for an attacker.

Summary

To sum up you configured Linux, Apache, PostgreSQL, PHP and the server side API software.

There are probably other things that can be done to lock the server down even further. For example, using SSH keys for logging into the server with SSH. You should do your own research in this area. The server functions as dead-drop for the encrypted communications. Nothing actually sensitive is stored on it, only encrypted messages. The messages are secured by a one-time pad and can't be decrypted without knowledge of the correct key.

However you do not want to advertise the server's existence. You only want yourself and your chat partner(s) to know about it. If the NSA find out about it and their TAO team decide to target you, there won't be much you can do to stop them. They have teams of hackers working on zero-day exploits for most software and firewalls. If they want in, they will probably find a way. If you find they are targeting your server it is best to abandon the server and then create a new one somewhere else. The server IP and key can be easily replaced in the client interface.

You can continue with the client installation guide now.