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Build

We're now going to discuss how to build the WoT Relay.

Dependencies

Before building the binary, we need to install Go, Git, and build-essential.

build-essential

To install build-essential run:

apt install build-essential

Git

We need to install Git to be able to clone the WoT Relay repository:

apt install git

Go

We're now going to discuss how to install Go on your relay.

First, you need to determine which version of Go you want to install which you can do by going to the All releases page on the Go website.

Make sure to choose the appropriate download file for your relay's operating system (OS) and architecture. Since we're using Debian with an AMD processor, we're going to download the linux-amd64 file.

At the time of writing the current version of Go is 1.23.2, so we'll be downloading the go1.23.2.linux-amd64.tar.gz file.

We'll be downloading the file to the /tmp directory which is cleared when the system reboots. We’ll be downloading the file here because we won’t need this file after the installation process is completed.

Since we're using a headless server, we can use the wget command to download Go:

wget -P /tmp https://go.dev/dl/go1.23.2.linux-amd64.tar.gz

Be sure to replace go1.23.2.linux-amd64.tar.gz with whatever version of Go you're downloading and with whatever architecture you're using.

Before extracting the contents of the file, be sure to first remove any previously installed version of Go:

rm -rf /usr/local/go

You can now extract the contents of the file into the /usr/local directory:

tar -C /usr/local -xzf /tmp/go1.23.2.linux-amd64.tar.gz

Be sure to not extract the contents into an already existing /usr/local/go directory since this can break the Go installation.

After successfully extracting the contents, you should see a go directory in the /usr/local directory:

ls /usr/local

You can now add /usr/local/go/bin to the PATH environment variable by adding export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin to your $HOME/.bashrc file.

First, open the file with a text editor of your choice, e.g., nano:

nano $HOME/.bashrc

Then add the following to the end of the file:

export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin

Save the changes made to the .bashrc file and exit the editor.

The changes may not take effect until after you log back into the server.

To apply the changes immediately run:

source $HOME/.bashrc

Verify the installation was successful by running:

go version

The command should output:

go version go1.23.2 linux/amd64

Clone the Repository

Before cloning the WoT Relay repository, we're going to first create the following directories in the $HOME directory:

mkdir -p $HOME/nostr/relays

We can now navigate to the relays directory:

cd $HOME/nostr/relays

We're now ready to clone the WoT Relay repository:

git clone https://github.com/bitvora/wot-relay.git

After cloning the repository, navigate to the wot-relay directory:

cd $HOME/nostr/relays/wot-relay

You can use the repository to update the WoT Relay, so we're going to keep the repository on the relay.

Build WoT Relay

We're now ready to build the WoT Relay:

go build -ldflags "-X main.version=$(git describe --tags --always)"

The compilation could take a while depending on your server's specs, so be patient while the binary is being built.

When the compilation is finished the binary will be located in the wot-relay directory.

You can list out the contents of that directory to see the binary:

ls

You should see the binary file which should be named wot-relay.

Check Version

At the time of writing, the latest version of the WoT Relay is v0.1.13 which is what the rest of the guide is currently based on.

Run Binary

You can now run the binary:

RELAY_NAME="Relay Runner's WoT Relay" RELAY_PUBKEY="3bcbb0f7dea9da9f5b2659ca5da89d5e576215de3885e51bd2474dd1b0c44b16" RELAY_DESCRIPTION="Only notes in relayrunner WoT" RELAY_URL="wss://relay.relayrunner.xyz" DB_PATH="db" INDEX_PATH="templates/index.html" STATIC_PATH="templates/static" ARCHIVAL_SYNC="FALSE" ARCHIVE_REACTIONS="FALSE" ./wot-relay

Be sure to replace the values of the following:

  • RELAY_NAME with the name you're going to use with your relay

  • RELAY_PUBKEY with the pubkey you're using with your relay

  • RELAY_DESCRIPTION with the description you're going to use with your relay

  • RELAY_URL with the domain name of your server prefixed by wss if you set up an SSL/TLS certificate or ws if you didn't set up a certificate

The Wot Relay should now be listening on localhost:3334. A relay database will be created in your current directory called db.

To stop the relay press Ctrl+C.