I2P in Docker

Very quick start

If you just want to give I2P a quick try or are using it on a home network, follow these steps:

Create two directories i2pconfig and i2ptorrents
Create an .env file containing the EXT_PORT environment variable.
Copy the following text and save it in a file docker-compose.yml

version: "3.5"
services:
    i2p:
        image: geti2p/i2p
        ports:
            - 127.0.0.1:4444:4444
            - 127.0.0.1:6668:6668
            - 127.0.0.1:7657:7657
            - "$EXT_PORT":"$EXT_PORT"
            - "$EXT_PORT":"$EXT_PORT"/udp
        volumes:
            - ./i2pconfig:/i2p/.i2p
            - ./i2ptorrents:/i2psnark

Execute docker-compose up
Start a browser and go to https://127.0.0.1:7657 to complete the setup wizard.

Note that this quick-start approach is not recommended for production deployments on remote servers. Please read the rest of this document for more information.

Building an image

There is an i2P image available over at DockerHub. If you do not want to use that one, you can build one yourself:

docker build -t geti2p/i2p .

Running a container

Environment Variables

It is possible to set the IP address where the I2P router is accessible by setting the IP_ADDR environment variable in your docker run command or your docker-compose file. For example, if you want to make your I2P router listen on all addresses, then you should pass -e IP_ADDR=0.0.0.0 to your docker run command.

It is also possible to configure the memory available to the I2P router using environment variables. To do this, use the: JVM_XMX environment variable by passing, for example, -e JVM_XMX=256m.

For advanced configuration only, you can mount the configuration file via -v ./router.config:/i2p/router.config to access the settings mentioned in the i2pd configuration.

Volumes

The container requires a volume for the configuration data to be mounted. Optionally, you can mount a separate volume for torrent ("i2psnark") downloads. See the example below.

Memory usage

By the default the image limits the memory available to the Java heap to 512MB. You can override that with the JVM_XMX environment variable.

Ports

There are several ports which are exposed by the image. You can choose which ones to publish depending on your specific needs.

Port	Interface	Description	TCP/UDP
4444	127.0.0.1	HTTP Proxy	TCP
4445	127.0.0.1	HTTPS Proxy	TCP
6668	127.0.0.1	IRC Proxy	TCP
7654	127.0.0.1	I2CP Protocol	TCP
7656	127.0.0.1	SAM Bridge TCP	TCP
7657	127.0.0.1	Router console	TCP
7658	127.0.0.1	I2P Site	TCP
7659	127.0.0.1	SMTP Proxy	TCP
7660	127.0.0.1	POP Proxy	TCP
7652	LAN interface	UPnP	TCP
7653	LAN interface	UPnP	UDP
12345	0.0.0.0	I2NP Protocol	TCP and UDP

You probably want at least the Router Console (7657) and the HTTP Proxy (4444). If you want I2P to be able to receive incoming connections from the internet, and hence not think it's firewalled, publish the I2NP Protocol port (12345) - but make sure you publish to a different random port, otherwise others may be able to guess you're running I2P in a Docker image.

Networking

A best-practices guide for cloud deployments is beyond the scope of this document, but in general you should try to minimize the number of published ports, while exposing only the I2NP ports to the internet. That means that the services in the list above which are bound to 127.0.0.1 (which include the router console) will need to be accessed via other methods like ssh tunneling or be manually configured to bind to a different interface.

Example

Here is an example container that mounts i2phome as home directory, i2ptorrents for torrents, and opens HTTP Proxy, IRC, Router Console and I2NP Protocols. It also limits the memory available to the JVM to 256MB.

docker build -t geti2p/i2p .
# I2NP port needs TCP and UDP.  Change the 54321 to something random, greater than 1024.
docker run \
    -e JVM_XMX=256m \
    -e EXT_PORT=54321 \
    -v i2phome:/i2p/.i2p \
    -v i2ptorrents:/i2psnark \
    -p 127.0.0.1:4444:4444 \
    -p 127.0.0.1:6668:6668 \
    -p 127.0.0.1:7657:7657 \
    -p "$EXT_PORT":"$EXT_PORT" \
    -p "$EXT_PORT":"$EXT_PORT"/udp \
    geti2p/i2p:latest

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