What is Bancwr
What is Bancwr
Diogel Bancwr is a self-hosted Nostr bunker for teams. It is a remote signer that speaks NIP-46: Nostr apps connect to it and ask it to sign events.
You run Bancwr on your own server. It has two parts:
- The bunker, which holds the signing key and answers NIP-46 requests over Nostr relays.
- The dashboard, a web interface where your team signs in and manages the bunker.
With Bancwr you can:
- Keep one signing key on a server you control.
- Give team members access with their own Nostr keys.
- Connect Nostr apps to the bunker with single-use connection tokens.
- Limit each app to the event kinds you choose.
- See the bunker's health, and a log of what it signed.
- Revoke an app's connection at any time.
The source code is on GitHub: https://github.com/diogel-io/bancwr
Core concepts
The bunker's key
The bunker signs with its own key, set when you install it. That key stays on the server.
The dashboard never shows the bunker's private key, and there is no way to export it. The Config page shows only the bunker's public key and where the key was loaded from.
Every app connected to the bunker signs as the bunker's key, not as a team member's key.
Team members sign in with their own key
People sign in to the dashboard with their own Nostr key, through:
- a Nostr browser extension (NIP-07), such as Porwr, or
- a remote signer (NIP-46), by pasting its
bunker://connection string.
Bancwr never asks for a private key. There is no field for an nsec.
Only keys registered with the bunker can use the dashboard. An administrator registers them on the Team page.
Roles
Each team member has one of three roles.
| Page | Administrator | User | Signer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dashboard | Full | Health only | Health only |
| Config | Yes | ||
| Team | Yes | ||
| Logs | Yes | ||
| Profile | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Follows | Yes | Yes | |
| Relays | Yes | Yes | |
| Connections | All apps | Their own apps |
- Administrator manages the bunker: the team, connection tokens, connected apps and the signing log.
- User sees the bunker's health, manages their own Nostr profile, follows and relays, and sees and revokes the apps connected for them.
- Signer sees the bunker's health and manages their own profile.
The sidebar only shows the pages your role can open. If you open a page your role does not allow, Bancwr shows a permission-denied page. The bunker checks the same rules itself on every request.
What Bancwr is not
Diogel Bancwr is not a custodial service for your personal keys. Team members keep their own keys in their own signer. Bancwr only knows their public keys.
Bancwr is not a relay. It connects to the relays you configure to receive and answer NIP-46 requests, and it reads and publishes members' profiles through Nostr relays.
How Bancwr relates to Porwr and Symudol
Bancwr is part of the Diogel suite:
- Porwr is a browser extension signer (NIP-07). It holds your keys in your browser.
- Symudol is the Diogel signer for Android.
- Bancwr is a signer that runs on a server and is shared by a team.
You can use Porwr to sign in to the Bancwr dashboard with your own key.