How to Install and Configure I2P on Windows 11

Service Check

• Open the Windows Services console to verify that the I2P Service is running:

• Alternatively, use PowerShell:

PS C:\> Get-Service -Name I2P

Status   Name               DisplayName
------   ----               -----------
Running  I2P                I2P Service

• If the service is not running, start it with:

PS C:\> Start-Service -Name I2P

Initial Configuration

• Open the I2P Router Console from the desktop shortcut, or enter http://127.0.0.1:7657 in Firefox:

• Follow the setup wizard, select your preferred language, then click Next:

• Select your preferred theme, then click Next to continue:

• Run the bandwidth test, then click Next to continue:

• Wait for the bandwidth test to complete, then click Next to continue:

• Review the bandwidth configuration, adjust the values if needed, then click Next to continue:

• We will configure Firefox manually later in this guide. For now, click Next to continue:

• Once the setup wizard is complete, click Finished to open the I2P Router Console:

• Once the setup is complete, the main I2P Router Console dashboard should appear:

Port Configuration

In this section, we will identify or configure the UDP and TCP ports used by I2P. These values will be needed later to configure port forwarding and the Windows Firewall rules correctly.

• Go to Configuration > Settings > Network, or open http://127.0.0.1:7657/confignet. Note the UDP port and the TCP port used by your I2P router (for example, 22648):

• Once your UDP and TCP ports have been identified (or modified), you should configure your Internet Gateway to perform NAT and forward these ports to the internal IP address of the workstation running your I2P router. For example, here I forward UDP and TCP port 22648 to the IP address 192.168.1.10:

Windows Firewall Configuration

The next step is to allow the required inbound traffic through Windows Firewall so that the I2P router can accept incoming connections.

• Create inbound firewall rules for the following:
  • The UDP port configured earlier (22648 in this example)
  • The TCP port configured earlier (22648 in this example)
  • The java.exe executable used by I2P

You can create these firewall rules either through the Windows Firewall graphical interface or with PowerShell. Both methods are shown below.

• Open Windows Defender Firewall with Advanced Security, select Inbound Rules, then click New Rule...:

• In the New Inbound Rule Wizard, select Custom as the rule type, then click Next:

• Select This program path, then click Browse... to locate the java.exe executable used by your Java installation:

• For the TCP rule, select the TCP protocol, then enter the local port number used by I2P:

• For the UDP rule, select the UDP protocol, then enter the local port number used by I2P:

Configure Windows Firewall (PowerShell)

• Open PowerShell with administrative privileges and run the following commands:

PS C:\> New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName "I2P_UDP" -Direction Inbound -Protocol UDP -LocalPort 22648 -Action Allow

PS C:\> New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName "I2P_TCP" -Direction Inbound -Protocol TCP -LocalPort 22648 -Action Allow

PS C:\> New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName "JAVA" -Direction Inbound -Program "%ProgramFiles%\Eclipse Adoptium\jdk-21.0.7.6-hotspot\bin\java.exe" -Action Allow

Check Network Connectivity

Once the configuration is complete, verify that your I2P router can properly connect to the I2P network.

• From the I2P Router Console, click the restart button to restart the router:

• After a few minutes, once the I2P router has restarted and connected to peers, the network status should display OK:

Firefox Profile (Optional)

It's not required, but I recommend creating a new Firefox profile. This will allow you to easily switch between your regular configuration and the I2P network.

• Open the Firefox Profile Manager by pressing Win + R, entering firefox --ProfileManager, and clicking OK:

• Click Create Profile… to start the Firefox profile creation wizard:

• In the Welcome screen of the Create Profile Wizard, click Next to continue:

• Enter a name for the new Firefox profile, then click Finish:

• Select the newly created Firefox profile, then click Start Firefox to launch the browser:

Configure Firefox Proxy

• Open the Firefox menu⁽¹⁾, click Settings⁽²⁾, search for proxy⁽³⁾, then click Settings...⁽⁴⁾ in the Network Settings section:

• Configure the Connection Settings as shown below, then click OK:

• Once the proxy settings have been configured, you can check the public IP address seen by websites using an IP address checker. In this example, I use ShebangTheIP 😇) together with an external IP checking website: