BOB – Basic Open Bridge

Warning: BOB only supports the legacy DSA-SHA1 signature type. Java I2P stopped shipping BOB in 1.7.0 (2022-02); it remains only on installations that started with 1.6.1 or earlier and on some i2pd builds. New applications must use SAM v3.

Language Bindings

• Go – ccondom
• Python – i2py-bob
• Twisted – txi2p
• C++ – bobcpp

Protocol Notes

• KEYS denotes a base64 destination (public + private keys).
• KEY is a base64 public key.
• ERROR responses have the form ERROR <description>\n.
• OK indicates command completion; optional data follows on the same line.
• DATA lines stream additional output before a final OK.

The help command is the only exception: it may return nothing to signal “no such command”.

Connection Banner

BOB uses newline-terminated ASCII lines (LF or CRLF). On connect it emits:

BOB <version>
OK

Current version: 00.00.10. Earlier builds used uppercase hex digits and non-standard numbering.

Core Commands

For complete command details, connect with telnet localhost 2827 and run help.

COMMAND     OPERAND                               RETURNS
help        [command]                             NOTHING | OK <info>
clear                                             ERROR | OK
getdest                                           ERROR | OK <KEY>
getkeys                                           ERROR | OK <KEYS>
getnick     <tunnelname>                          ERROR | OK
inhost      <hostname | IP>                       ERROR | OK
inport      <port>                                ERROR | OK
list                                              ERROR | DATA... + OK
lookup      <hostname>                            ERROR | OK <KEY>
nick        <friendlyname>                        ERROR | OK
outhost     <hostname | IP>                       ERROR | OK
outport     <port>                                ERROR | OK
quit                                              ERROR | OK
setkey      <base64 destination>                  ERROR | OK
start                                             ERROR | OK
status                                            ERROR | DATA... + OK
stop                                              ERROR | OK

Deprecation Summary

• BOB has no support for modern signature types, encrypted LeaseSets, or transport features.
• The API is frozen; no new commands will be added.
• Applications still relying on BOB should migrate to SAM v3 as soon as possible.