Introduction

Spora is a peer-to-peer VPN. One person shares their Internet connection, another connects to it through a link. Traffic comes out at the sharer’s home connection, from a real residential IP, which makes it very hard to tell apart from the sharer’s own browsing.

This book covers the command-line client, spora. It is the same networking core that powers the Spora apps, driven from a terminal. You can use it to:

• share your connection with someone you trust, and keep a local log of what your connection was used for;
• connect through a friend’s shared connection, as a full VPN client on Linux, macOS, or Windows;
• run pieces of your own infrastructure, such as a relay, when you do not want to depend on the built-in one;
• automate any of the above: the CLI has a machine-readable mode designed for scripts and tests.

If you just want the two-command version, start with the Quickstart. The how-to guides walk through real setups, and the reference section describes every flag, event, and file.

A note on trust: the person who shares carries the traffic of the person who connects. Share with people you know, and connect through people who know you. The sharing guide explains the connection log that protects the sharer’s side of that bargain.