Summary of Questions from Chinese users

[656pppqqq]

Hello everyone




I am a Chinese i2p user and have been using i2p to access http websites blocked by the Chinese government since September 2024. On June 29, 2025, my i2p suddenly encountered a serious problem. At first, it couldn't access http sites, and then even i2p sites couldn't be accessed normally. This situation persisted until July 5, 2025. On the evening of July 5, 2025, the http site suddenly became accessible normally, but the i2p site could not be accessed, or only can visit zzz.i2p. The access to the i2p site improved in the following days, but it was still far from the level before June 2025.(also
Including http sites)



After July 5th, my i2p client has become very unstable. It is often forced to be replanted through URL without prior notice, I have to frequently restart the i2p client to barely ensure access to http or i2p sites.



I have installed i2p+ on my Windows system, the latest version i2p 2.9.0 on my intel chip mac system computer, and the simplified version i2p1.9.0 on my ARM architecture Apple M chip computer (this version has not been updated by the official for a long time, and its anti-blocking ability is the worst)



The update method for i2p+ is more difficult than that for the regular i2p. I have tried the update method introduced on the official website several times but failed. I can only uninstall the old version and reinstall the latest one.



I'm not a computer professional. I'm not yet familiar with many Settings and functions of the i2p client. I only know to change the Settings of two HTTP tunnels (ports 4444,4445) to access the http site, I have always maintained the initial Settings for the tunnels of ports 6668,7660,7659 and 7670. Can I improve the existing connection situation by building new tunnels? Does the http tunnel only have two ports, 4444 and 4445?





Sincerely


King regards!!!

[BlindTraveler]

Assuming you have read this Reseed->Other Ways Of Reseeding

frequently restart the i2p client

Also assuming your router is running at least 24h before trying to use i2p(it can be less) I would guess that there is not much you yourself can do about it.
Hope someone more knowledgeable then me can find a solution.

i2p client has become very unstable

Does that mean that you "randomly" alternate between being able to access websites and not being able?

How is the count of your Participating and Floodfill routers?
Also make sure you are giving enough of your bandwidth to the network. I'm not sure what's the minimum but I would guess that something less then 10kB/sec could be a problem.

I'm not yet familiar with many Settings and functions of the i2p client.

Check this post to avoid my mistake.

Can I improve the existing connection situation by building new tunnels?

I don't think so.
Leave the setting in (http://127.0.0.1:7657/i2ptunnelmgr) as they are.
Sure increasing the Tunnel Quantity will give you more throughput but it's not throughput that's a problem for you but the fact that you can't get to your destination website. Those include i2p websites(*.i2p) and your outproxy (by default exit.stormycloud.i2p). My guess is that reseed and Floodfill routers are problem.

Does the http tunnel only have two ports, 4444 and 4445?

By default yes. 4444/4445 are http/https ports and they use the shared tunnels(same tunnels).
Java version give you option to use Tunnel Wizard inside of i2ptunnelmgr where you can create more tunnels and that includes new http tunnel.
Again this won't solve your problem.

[656pppqqq]

Thank you for your reply，I'm extremely grateful and appreciate.




I checked the number of my i2p+ client Floodfill routers, which is 385. Indeed, as you said, all my bandwidth data is less than 10kB/sec ( Including 3 seconds, 5 minutes, and the total )



On most Chinese platforms, people say that it is very difficult for the Chinese government to block i2p. However, recently I came across a Chinese article from 2024 which mentioned that the situation might change. This Chinese blogger suggested that Chinese users install i2p on VPS.



I recall the situation that began in April 2025: that is, http sites were inaccessible during the day in China, but the situation would improve slightly at night. By 5 a.m., the speed of accessing http sites would be extremely fast, with almost no resistance. Because the situation at that time was not as serious as it was later, and the i2p site could be accessed normally, I chose to endure it for the time being. I remember that a few months ago, zzz.i2p mentioned that many i2p tunnels were attacked by China. I don't know whether the Chinese government has improved the technology and gained the ability to block i2p or not.



Before installing i2p in 2024, I read some articles saying that i2p sometimes will be unstable. However, I feel that some recent situations are indeed very abnormal. There has never been a situation where an http site cannot be accessed for more than a week before.



At the same time, thank you for recommending the article to me. I will carefully study the issues you mentioned in it. Now I truly realize the importance of studying computer science hard.

[BlindTraveler]

Floodfill routers, which is 385.

While lower then my(1500) I would still assume 385 is still a good number. Then again if they did not have LeaseSet[1] for the websites you want to visit a lot would be explained.
Something like a Bootstrap Attacks[1] would be one way to make you connect only to adversary controlled Floodfills and my guess is than they could keep you "trapped" by making sure you can only see and connect to routers/websites they want you to(kind of like Chines GFW). But this attack should be unlikely and would not be used in a way I just described. It would be used to simply unmask all your I2P activity(not to create another GFW).
WARNING : I'm not I2P expert and previous assumption might have no correlation with reality.

bandwidth data is less than 10kB/sec

I guess there was a misunderstanding in translation. I was talking about Bandwidth Limiter (http://127.0.0.1:7657/config) and how much traffic you give to the network.

My questions would be:
1. How much is your download/upload speed that your ISP gives you?
2. How much of it do you give to the I2P?(7657/config)
3. Do other activities/computers/people on that same network use and make the download/upload speed unstable for your I2P router?
Then again maybe none of that matters because of the following...


https://geti2p.net/en/about/restrictive-countries

Routers that appear to be in the "Strict" countries will automatically be placed into "Hidden" mode.

(China is one of the "Strict" countries)

(Router) will no longer publish a routerInfo to the NetDB, it will no longer accept participating tunnels, and it will reject direct connections to routers in the same country that it is in.

Hidden Mode Summary(in that post) explains why number of participants is low.
That is the likely reason console shows less than 10kB/sec.

Chinese government has improved the technology and gained the ability to block i2p or not.

Blocking every I2P router would be hard. It's more likely they are interfering with the Bootstrapping[1] process.

Here is another related guide.
http://i2p-projekt.i2p/en/faq#reseed

i2p on VPS

I guess that would be the last resort.


References:
[1] http://i2p-projekt.i2p/en/docs/how/network-database

[656pppqqq]

Hello



I check “ http://127.0.0.1:7657/config”


My download speed is 1049KB/s , upload speed is 131 KB/s


I give to the I2P （ Network sharing ） is 90% , I installed i2p and Tor on all the computers capable of installing it, and they share one home network. On some computers, I installed freenet, which is also written in java.


I searched for "Bootstrapping" simultaneously on the English Wikipedia and the CSDN programmer Forum in China. I found that Bootstrapping is widely applied in computer science, mathematical statistics, and finance. I feel that perhaps because I2p is a decentralized network, if someone wants to interfere with its boot process, Algorithms may also be random.


China government management always like costs a great deal of money and manpower in blocking and controlling public opinion. If the Chinese government really continues to use methods like Bootstrapping to interfere with i2p, do I have any countermeasures?



I2p has a history of 22 years. Is there any better application now can Breakthrough China GFW ? I found Gnu:net and MIT's Riffle on youtube and google, but it seems that both of their projects are in the process of development.

[anikey]

In the context of I2P, "Bootstrapping" or reseeding (more proper term) is the first procedure the router does after installing - it learns of other routers participating in the network. It goes to two(i think?) servers over HTTPS, randomly picked from the default reseed servers list. These may be blocked.
You may want to start reseeding while connected to a VPN, or download a reseed bundle from somewhere and manually add it into router console, or ask for a reseed bundle from people you know (personally) that also use I2P.
Make sure the reseed bundle is secure (when you get the default ones over HTTPS it should be considered secure), or you risk getting the "bootstrap attack" mentioned before (read the "[1]" reference in that message and find-in-page for "bootstrap attacks").
BUT - if you already have even a slow conneciton to I2P, you have already completed reseed successfully, and probably don't need it.

Regarding blockability, I2P uses protocols that looks like random noise (uses both TCP and UDP), it is blocked only when look-like-nothing protocols are blocked.
But IP addresses of most routers are also stored in the distributed NetDB. By crawling the NetDB, one can collect the IP addresses of I2P routers and then block them, thus disrupting connectivity. Although it might be hard to get the IPs of ALL routers, since it's dynamic and distributed.

Another metric that can be used to tell the connection quality is the "tunnel creation success rate". In i2pd, it's displayed on the front page of the router console, but Java I2P should have something like that as well somewhere. A value of >30% might be good enough. For sample values of tunnel creation success rate, you can check http://toys.notbob.i2p/ (specifically the tunnel success rate graph).

[656pppqqq]

Hello，anikey


Thank you for your reply. I'm very sorry that I replied late. Because your reply involves many professional computer terms and limited by my English proficiency, I have to rely on translation software.


I carefully recalled the process of installing i2p last year. I initially attempted to reseeding it through a VPN, but unfortunately, it failed. Then I found reseed bundle on youtube and google. At that time, I used it without thinking about whether it was safe or not.


I'm extremely remorseful now. I don't know if there's any way to remedy the situation or not.


I'm currently learning how to use i2pd. I didn't know what i2pd was for before. Today, I tried to install it on my Apple computer but failed. I can't find "tunnel creation success rate"in my JAVA i2p.


These days, my i2p network is still very unstable and I often
reseeding repeatedly.


King regards!!!