dat-thang/docs/libcess.md

libcess

libcess is the Cesspool base used by both p2p applications:

                 ┌───────────┐
                 │  libcess  │
                 │ UDP, peer │
                 │ discovery│
                 └─────┬─────┘
               ┌───────┴───────┐
          ┌────▼────┐     ┌────▼────┐
          │ ddat/dat│     │ cable   │
          │ SLEEP   │     │ Cabal   │
          │ archives│     │ rooms   │
          └─────────┘     └─────────┘

The package owns the UDP socket transport, Cesspool messages, bootstrap and rendezvous client/server logic, peer/topic state, and its Ed25519 bootstrap identity. It has no SLEEP, Dat, Cable, or JSON dependency. Dat and Cable link the same libcess.a so a configured NETWORK_PROTOCOL selects one discovery network for both applications. The protocol token is data in the root NETWORK_PROTOCOL file for the full project; a standalone libcess build reads libcess/NETWORK_PROTOCOL.

Standalone build

From the project root:

make -C libcess
make -C libcess install PREFIX="$HOME/.local"

This builds libcess/build/libcess.a and libcess/build/cesspool-bootstrap. Only a C99 compiler, GNU make, and libsodium development files are required. The bootstrap executable links only libcess, libsodium, and the platform UDP socket library; it does not need libcurl or the Dat application library.

Apps including cesspool.h and cess_net.h link libcess.a after their own static archive, then link libsodium. The installed headers are under include/libcess/.

Bootstrap node

cesspool-bootstrap is the bootstrap service shipped with the library. It tracks topic announcements and returns peer endpoints; archive and chat data still travels between peers. The process must stay running and its chosen UDP port must be reachable from clients. --advertise HOST:PORT prints the externally reachable address; the tool does not call an outside IP lookup service. Configure that address in ddat or cable settings on each client.

The default identity location used by the integrated application is dat-gpt/cesspool-bootstrap-state/identity.key under the platform's state directory. The raw 96-byte public-plus-secret Ed25519 keypair matches the existing bootstrap identity file layout, so extracting the library keeps a running node's identity stable.

The old dat_peer_t, datnet_t, and datnet_* spellings remain as thin source-compatibility aliases in the main application headers. New Cesspool consumers should use cess_peer_t, cessnet_t, and cessnet_*.