hojas/nostr_notes/First steps.md

I've been reading too much about this without dipping my toes, so here it goes.

I want to run a relay locally, create two identities and get them talking to each other.

I'll be using Python stuff so that I can look under the hood if necessary.

• Python client: https://github.com/BrightonBTC/bija
• Python relay: https://github.com/monty888/nostrpy

Goals:

1. Create a private/public key pair.
2. Connect to a popular relay and read stuff.
3. Set up my own local relay and talk with myself.

Creating a private/public key pair

So, from what I'm reading, a private key is simply a 256 bit number, usually encoded in hex. I can easily create that with:

openssl rand -hex 32

So I got myself this nice private key: 39d583bc40f732b0c35dfe1a5b1124c5b51b6599f78c6d60f59f31c4581d524b. Now I just need it's public sibling to get going.

I decided to cook the public key myself with this library: https://github.com/jeffthibault/python-nostr. Install it was a pain, everything kept breaking. In the end, I:

• Downloaded Python 3.9
• Cloned the python-nostr repo
• Made a venv and installed python-nostr in there

So, I managed to get my public key like this:

from nostr.key import PrivateKey

private_key = PrivateKey(raw_secret=bytes.fromhex("39d583bc40f732b0c35dfe1a5b1124c5b51b6599f78c6d60f59f31c4581d524b"))
public_key = private_key.public_key
print(f"Private key: {private_key.bech32()}")
print(f"Public key: {public_key.bech32()}")

And apparently, my private key and public key in bech32 format are:

• Private: nsec1882c80zq7uetps6alcd9kyfyck63keve77xx6c84nucugkqa2f9s5r7rrg
• Public: npub1zer6sezx3a6g7ef9qanv9qnqamcn4j2fez366skhfkpvffkpmvhsf65huy

In hex:

• Private: 39d583bc40f732b0c35dfe1a5b1124c5b51b6599f78c6d60f59f31c4581d524b
• Public: 1647a864468f748f65250766c28260eef13ac949c8a3ad42d74d82c4a6c1db2f

Connect to a popular relay

Ok. Part 1, getting a client setup. I'll try with: https://github.com/BrightonBTC/bija.

Docker didn't work, weird errors left and right. I went ahead and simply installed as a python script.

Okay nice, I loaded my private keys and we are live. Now I need to find someone's pubkey to search for their messages.

I settled for dergigi, this is his pubkey: npub1dergggklka99wwrs92yz8wdjs952h2ux2ha2ed598ngwu9w7a6fsh9xzpc

Andn I found him. Cooooolio.

Set up my own local relay and talk with myself

Okay, this one will be a bit tougher for sure.

First, I don't even know if bija can't connect to my own home relay. The first time I opened, it automatically showed me a bunch of cool relays and I just accepted those, so I don't know how to add another one. I'm gonna check.

Okay, it can connect to a wss:// address. Apparently wss stands for web socket, which is an alternative protocol to http. Man, I'm growing old and outdated.

Anyways. If I set up a relay and manage to get that wss:// thingy from it, I should be able to connect.