HAVEN

[!IMPORTANT] HAVEN is considered feature complete and, going forward, Barry Deen's repository will only receive bug fixes. See the announcement here

HAVEN (High Availability Vault for Events on Nostr) is the most sovereign personal relay for the Nostr protocol, for storing and backing up sensitive notes like eCash, private chats, and drafts. It is a relay that is not so dumb, with features like web of trust, whitelisting, blacklisting, JSONL backup / restore (including periodic backups to the cloud), blastr note to others relays, and importing your old notes from other relays. It even includes its own blossom media server!

Four Relays in One + Blossom Media Server

Private Relay: This relay is only accessible by the owner of the relay and whitelisted npubs. It is used for drafts, ecash, and other private notes that nobody else can read or write to. It is protected by Auth.

Chat Relay: This relay is used to contact the owner of the relay and whitelisted npubs by DM. Only people in the web of trust can interact with this relay, protected by Auth. It only accepts encrypted DMs and group chat kinds.

Inbox Relay: This relay is where the owner of the relay and whitelisted npubs reads from. Send your zaps, reactions, and replies to this relay when you're tagging the owner or one of the whitelisted npubs. You can also pull notes from this relay if you want notes where the owner or whitelisted npub are tagged. This relay automatically pulls notes from other relays. Only notes where the owner or whitelisted npubs are tagged will be accepted to this relay.

Outbox Relay: This relay is where the owner's and whitelisted npubs notes all live and are publicly accessible. You can import all your old notes to this relay. All notes sent to this relay are blasted to other relays. Only the owner and whitelisted npubs can send to this relay, but anyone can read.

Blossom Media Server: This relay also includes a media server for hosting images and videos. You can upload images and videos to this relay and get a link to share them. Only the relay owner and whitelisted npubs can upload to this relay, but anyone can view the images and videos.

Not So Dumb Relay Features

Web of Trust: Protected from DM and Inbox spam by using a Web of Trust (WoT). See the Web of Trust Documentation for more details.

Access Control: Whitelist and blacklist npubs. See the Access Control Documentation for more details.

Inbox Relay: Notes are pulled from other relays and stored in the inbox relay.

Blastr: Notes sent to the outbox are also blasted to other relays.

Import Old Notes: Import your old notes and notes you're tagged in from other relays.

Backup/Recover: It is your data, manually export or import data JSONL at any time. Set periodic backups to the cloud for easy recovery. See Backup Documentation for more details.

Installation

Option 1: Download Pre-built Binaries (Recommended)

The easiest way to get started with Haven is to download pre-built binaries from our GitHub releases page:

Download Haven Releases

Installation Steps:

1. Download the appropriate binary for your system from the releases page
2. Verify the download (optional): See our Verification Documentation for instructions on how to verify the authenticity of the binaries using GPG signatures and checksums.
3. Create a haven directory and extract the downloaded file:

   mkdir haven
   # For Linux/macOS:
   tar -xzf haven_[Platform]_[Architecture].tar.gz -C haven
   # For Windows: extract the .zip file to this directory
   

Option 2: Build from Source

If you prefer to build Haven from source or need to customize the build, please see the BuildDocumentation.

Option 3:

Check out some of the external community-built tools for managing Haven relays:

1. Haven Docker: A lightweight Docker Compose setup with a TUI for configuration and management
2. HAVEN For Mac: A user-friendly macOS application for managing your Haven relay with a native GUI and a ton of extra features
3. Haven Start9 Wrapper: A Tor-only Start9 wrapper for Haven with its own Dashboard and Web UI
4. HAVEN Kit: Simple configuration tool to set up a HAVEN Nostr relay in Umbrel Docker or Podman with just a few clicks

If you have built a Haven relay management tool that you would like to share, please open a PR to add it to this list!

[!NOTE] The Haven team does not officially support the tools listed above. They are community-built and maintained by third parties. Please refer to the respective repositories for installation instructions, documentation, and support. If you encounter any issues with these tools, please open an issue in their respective repositories.

Setup Instructions

Follow these steps to get the Haven Relay running on your local machine (after installing via binary download or building from source):

1. Copy .env.example to .env

You'll need to create an .env file based on the example provided.

cp .env.example .env

2. Set your environment variables

Open the .env file and set the necessary environment variables.

3. Create the relays JSON files

Copy the example relays JSON files for your seed and blastr relays:

cp relays_import.example.json relays_import.json

cp relays_blastr.example.json relays_blastr.json

Customise the list of relays above as needed for your setup. The JSON should contain an array of relay URLs, which default to wss:// if you don't explicitly specify the protocol.

[!TIP] It is hard to keep an up-to-date list of working Nostr relays. Keep an eye on Haven's logs to see if any of the relays you're using are no longer working and replace them accordingly. There is no guarantee that the example relays will be up and running at all times (or at all), and it is up to the user to keep their relay list up to date.

4. Configure Access Control (optional)

Haven allows you to whitelist specific npubs to grant them full relay access or blacklist them to prevent any interaction with your relay.

See the Access Control Documentation for more details on how to set up whitelists and blacklists.

5. Run on System Startup

Linux – Create a Systemd Service

<details><summary>Click here to view the installation routine for Systemd</summary> <p>

To have the relay run as a service, create a systemd unit file. Make sure to limit the memory usage to less than your system's total memory to prevent the relay from crashing the system. Replace the values for ExecStart and WorkingDirectory with the actual paths where you installed Haven and stored the .env file.

1. Create the file:

   sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/haven.service
   

2. Add the following contents:

   [Unit]
   Description=Haven Relay
   After=network.target
   
   [Service]
   ExecStart=/home/ubuntu/haven/haven #Edit path to point to where you installed Haven
   WorkingDirectory=/home/ubuntu/haven #Edit path to point to where you installed Haven
   MemoryMax=1000M  # Example, Limit memory usage to 1000 MB | Edit this to fit your machine
   Restart=always
   
   [Install]
   WantedBy=multi-user.target
   

3. Reload systemd to recognize the new service:

   sudo systemctl daemon-reload
   

4. Start the service:

   sudo systemctl start haven
   

5. (Optional) Enable the service to start on boot:

   sudo systemctl enable haven
   

</p> </details>

macOS - Create a login item App

<details><summary>Click here to view the installation routine for macOS</summary> <p>

To have the relay run on boot, create a script that will open the terminal and run the haven binary, the terminal will remain open and the relay running with it. Be sure the download /haven directory is located in the macOS home folder ~/

1. Create the App: Open Script Editor

2. Add the following contents:

   tell application "Terminal"
     activate
     do script "cd \"$HOME/haven\"; ./haven; exec $SHELL"
   end tell
   

3. Save in the Applications folder

4. Open System - Settings - General - Login Items Hit the plus, add run_haven from the Applications folder

5. Reboot – On initial restart and terminal auto-open, choose “allow”

6. Reboot again to test the login item

</p> </details>

6. Set up a Reverse Proxy (optional)

To have a domain name (example: relay.domain.com) point to your machine, you will need to set up a reverse proxy.

Nginx

<details><summary>Click here to view the installation routine for Nginx</summary> <p>

1. Install nginx on your re