If this is your first time running I2P, you will see a link on the left hand side telling you to "reseed" - click that to get connected to the network (you only need to do it if that link shows up). Within 5 minutes, you should see the number of "Active: " peers rise, and you should see some local "destinations" listed (if not, see below). Once those are up, you can:

• chat anonymously - fire up your own IRC client and connect to the server at localhost port 6668. This points at one of two anonymously hosted IRC servers (irc.duck.i2p and irc.baffled.i2p), but neither you nor they know where the other is.
• browse "eepsites" - on I2P there are anonymously hosted websites - tell your browser to use the HTTP proxy at localhost port 4444, then browse to an eepsite -
  • duck.i2p: duck's eepsite, with links to other active sites
  • ugha.i2p: ugha's eepsite, a wiki that anyone can edit, and lots of links
  • orion.i2p: a site which tracks eepsite uptime and changes
  • files.i2p: a search engine that tries to keep track of things on I2P
  • forum.i2p: a secure and anonymous connection to forum.i2p.net
  • www.i2p: a secure and anonymous connection to www.i2p.net
  • dev.i2p: a secure and anonymous connection to dev.i2p.net
  • Freenet proxies: fproxy.i2p and freenet.eco.i2p
  There are many more eepsites - just follow the links from the ones you see, bookmark your favorites, and visit them often!
• browse the web - there are a pair of HTTP "outproxies" in I2P hooked up to your own HTTP proxy on port 4444 - simply set your browser's proxy to use it (as above) and go to any normal URL - your requests will be bounced through the I2P network.
• transfer files - there is an I2P port of the BitTorrent application available.
• use anonymous email - postman has created a mail system compatible with normal mail clients (POP3 / SMTP) that allows email within I2P as well as mail from and to the normal internet! get your account at www.postman.i2p. We bundle susimail, a web based anonymity-oriented pop3/smtp client configured to access postman's mail services.
• and lots more

Want your own eepsite?

We've bundled some software to let you run your own eepsite - a Jetty instance listening on http://localhost:7658/. Simply place your files in the eepsite/docroot/ directory (or place any standard JSP/Servlet .war files under eepsite/webapps, or standard CGI script under eepsite/cgi-bin) and they'll show up. Your eepsite's destination (which uniquely and securely identifies it) is shown on the I2PTunnel configuration page - if you want other people to see your eepsite, you need to give them that really huge string. Just paste it into the Eepsite announce forum, add it to ugha's wiki, orion's list, or paste it in the #i2p or #i2p-chat channels on IRC (be sure to split it into two lines, as its too long for one).

Troubleshooting

If the left hand side has a warning, telling you to check your NAT or firewall, please see the config page and make sure that you can receive inbound TCP connections on port 8887 (or another port that you specify). Problems forwarding that port account for the vast majority of issues people run into. When it says "Active: 72/85", the "72" means how many peers you are connected with now, and "85" means how many you have spoken with recently - if that first number is 0, you can bet that there are firewall issues. If the second number is under 5, you should reseed (a link on the left hand side of the page will show up to help you when necessary).

If you are still having problems, you may want to review the information on the I2P website, post up messages to the I2P discussion forum, or swing by #i2p or #i2p-chat on IRC at irc.freenode.net, invisiblechat/IIP, or irc.duck.i2p (they're all linked together).

As a note, you can change this page by editing the file "docs/readme.html"