IDENTITY — GNUnet documentation

# IDENTITY

## Connecting to the service

First, typical clients connect to the identity service using `GNUNET_IDENTITY_connect`. This function takes a callback as a parameter. If the given callback parameter is non-null, it will be invoked to notify the application about the current state of the identities in the system.

- First, it will be invoked on all known egos at the time of the connection. For each ego, a handle to the ego and the user’s name for the ego will be passed to the callback. Furthermore, a `void **` context argument will be provided which gives the client the opportunity to associate some state with the ego.

- Second, the callback will be invoked with NULL for the ego, the name and the context. This signals that the (initial) iteration over all egos has completed.

- Then, the callback will be invoked whenever something changes about an ego. If an ego is renamed, the callback is invoked with the ego handle of the ego that was renamed, and the new name. If an ego is deleted, the callback is invoked with the ego handle and a name of NULL. In the deletion case, the application should also release resources stored in the context.

- When the application destroys the connection to the identity service using `GNUNET_IDENTITY_disconnect`, the callback is again invoked with the ego and a name of NULL (equivalent to deletion of the egos). This should again be used to clean up the per-ego context.

The ego handle passed to the callback remains valid until the callback is invoked with a name of NULL, so it is safe to store a reference to the ego’s handle.

## Operations on Egos

Given an ego handle, the main operations are to get its associated private key using `GNUNET_IDENTITY_ego_get_private_key` or its associated public key using `GNUNET_IDENTITY_ego_get_public_key`.

The other operations on egos are pretty straightforward. Using `GNUNET_IDENTITY_create`, an application can request the creation of an ego by specifying the desired name. The operation will fail if that name is already in use. Using `GNUNET_IDENTITY_rename` the name of an existing ego can be changed. Finally, egos can be deleted using `GNUNET_IDENTITY_delete`. All of these operations will trigger updates to the callback given to the `GNUNET_IDENTITY_connect` function of all applications that are connected with the identity service at the time. `GNUNET_IDENTITY_cancel` can be used to cancel the operations before the respective continuations would be called. It is not guaranteed that the operation will not be completed anyway, only the continuation will no longer be called.

## The anonymous Ego

A special way to obtain an ego handle is to call `GNUNET_IDENTITY_ego_get_anonymous`, which returns an ego for the "anonymous" user — anyone knows and can get the private key for this user, so it is suitable for operations that are supposed to be anonymous but require signatures (for example, to avoid a special path in the code). The anonymous ego is always valid and accessing it does not require a connection to the identity service.

## Convenience API to lookup a single ego

As applications commonly simply have to lookup a single ego, there is a convenience API to do just that. Use `GNUNET_IDENTITY_ego_lookup` to lookup a single ego by name. Note that this is the user’s name for the ego, not the service function. The resulting ego will be returned via a callback and will only be valid during that callback. The operation can be canceled via `GNUNET_IDENTITY_ego_lookup_cancel` (cancellation is only legal before the callback is invoked).

## Associating egos with service functions

The `GNUNET_IDENTITY_set` function is used to associate a particular ego with a service function. The name used by the service and the ego are given as arguments. Afterwards, the service can use its name to lookup the associated ego using `GNUNET_IDENTITY_get`.

### The IDENTITY Client-Service Protocol

A client connecting to the identity service first sends a message with type `GNUNET_MESSAGE_TYPE_IDENTITY_START` to the service. After that, the client will receive information about changes to the egos by receiving messages of type `GNUNET_MESSAGE_TYPE_IDENTITY_UPDATE`. Those messages contain the private key of the ego and the user’s name of the ego (or zero bytes for the name to indicate that the ego was deleted). A special bit `end_of_list` is used to indicate the end of the initial iteration over the identity service’s egos.

The client can trigger changes to the egos by sending `CREATE`, `RENAME` or `DELETE` messages. The CREATE message contains the private key and the desired name. The RENAME message contains the old name and the new name. The DELETE message only needs to include the name of the ego to delete. The service responds to each of these messages with a `RESULT_CODE` message which indicates success or error of the operation, and possibly a human-readable error message.

Finally, the client can bind the name of a service function to an ego by sending a `SET_DEFAULT` message with the name of the service function and the private key of the ego. Such bindings can then be resolved using a `GET_DEFAULT` message, which includes the name of the service function. The identity service will respond to a GET_DEFAULT request with a SET_DEFAULT message containing the respective information, or with a RESULT_CODE to indicate an error.