@gun-vue/relay

Gun-Vue: Relay

GitHub (/relay) • npm • Docs

A simple Gun relay peer in Node.js.

This package is part of Gun-Vue: The Peer-to-Peer Web App Toolkit

How to Install

Requirements

• Node.js >=16.x
• npm

Instructions

• Create a new Node.js project:

npm init -y

• Install the Gun-Vue: Relay package as a dependency:

npm i @gun-vue/relay

• Open package.json and add:

"scripts": {
    "start": "node start.js"
  }

• Create a start.js script and add:

import relay from "@gun-vue/relay";

relay.init();

• Test the relay:

node start.js

Hello wonderful person! :) Thanks for using GUN, please ask for help on http://chat.gun.eco if anything takes you longer than 5min to figure out!
AXE relay enabled!
Server started at http://localhost:8765/gun
Multicast on 233.255.255.255:8765

Options

The relay can be customized with an options object by updating start.js:

relay.init({
	host: "localhost", // Domain or IP address where your relay is hosted (no 'http://')
	port: 8765, // The port your relay will listen on (e.g., 8080)
	store: false, // Use 'true' to enable persistent storage on disk
	path: "public", // Folder to serve static files (e.g., your front-end build)
	showQr: "false", // Render a QR Code Link to the server
});

Alternatively, create a .env file and add the following defaults:

RELAY_HOST="localhost"
RELAY_STORE=false
RELAY_PORT=8765
RELAY_PATH="public"
RELAY_QR=false

Standalone Executable

You can build a standalone executable that bundles Node.js runtime with the relay server. This creates a larger file (≈90MB) but allows for easy distribution and running without Node.js installation.

Building the Executable

• Clone the repository and install dependencies:

pnpm install

• Browse the /relay/ folder and build the bundled application:

cd relay
pnpm build

• Create the platform-specific executable:

For MacOS:

pnpm app:macos

For Windows:

pnpm app:windows

For Linux:

pnpm app:linux

The executable will be created in the dist folder as:

• MacOS: gun-relay
• Windows: gun-relay.exe
• Linux: gun-relay-linux

Running the Executable

Simply double-click the executable or run it from the terminal:

./dist/gun-relay  # MacOS/Linux
.\dist\gun-relay.exe  # Windows

The relay will start with default settings. You can still use environment variables to configure it by creating a .env file in the same directory as the executable.