Session Router 1.0.0 - initial release

Session Router 1.0.0

This is the first official public release of Session Router, the Session project onion routing network layer. This release is the culmination of years of work to rewrite most of Lokinet from the ground up with a new communication layer (built on the QUIC protocol), and heavily refactors (or completely rewrites) nearly everything in the program based on what has been learned from years of running and working with Lokinet.

This initial release is an early release optional part of the Session Node network: Operators who want to help build the network are encouraged to run it, report problems and bugs (just in case there are any left), and help prepare Session Router to be used in the near future by Session clients.

This new network is based on the same onion routing principles as Lokinet, but redesigned and reworked to avoid many of its reliability and performance issues encountered over the years, along with building a more maintainable, better structured codebase to continue to work on Session Router capabilities.

This initial release does not yet have full feature parity with Lokinet: GUI clients, Windows and macOS releases are still works in progress, as is exit support, and so for the time being this release is running alongside, rather than instead of, Lokinet. What this new software adds, most notably, is a new, faster, more reliable network interface and a fully functioning embedded library aimed at enabling Session clients to use Session Router for communication. Testnet versions of Session iOS have been successfully using this lokinet support for several weeks, and it is expected to become available in public releases in the not-too-distant future.

While more testing, bug fixes and performance improvements are on the way, operators are encouraged to install the updated oxend (11.6.0) which brings this new Session Router into the Service Node network.

New bug and feature updates are to be expected in the near future, and once testing on the wider mainnet network is looking solid, Session Router will become a mandatory part of the network for all Session Nodes.

For this initial release, Session Router binaries are available from the Session project ubuntu/debian package repository (https://deb.oxen.io). Static builds for those operators not using the official deb releases will be made available in the near future.