🚀 MyZubster: From Zero to Production on Aruba Cloud VPS with Tor Onion Service

The journey from code to a fully decentralized, privacy-first freelance marketplace
📌 What is MyZubster?

MyZubster is an open-source, decentralized freelance marketplace powered by Monero (XMR).

It allows:

✅ Buyers to find and purchase services

✅ Sellers to offer their skills and earn Monero

✅ Privacy-first interactions (PGP + Tor integrated)

✅ Secure escrow for transactions

✅ NFT Marketplace for tokenized skills

It's built with privacy, freedom, and decentralization at its core.
🌐 Access MyZubster
Method URL
Tor (Onion) http://olqcnbdlt35k2stmmwvzhvuetu2fc4us2jnn5wg6y6wlcddihfmdomid.onion
Domain http://myzubster.com (in propagation)
🧩 The Architecture

MyZubster is built as a modular ecosystem:
Component Description Status
Gateway Monero payment engine ✅ Live
Marketplace Backend API + UI ✅ Live
Mobile App React Native 🚧 In Development

Tech Stack:

Backend: Node.js + Express

Database: MongoDB (Gateway) + SQLite (Marketplace)

Authentication: JWT

AI: Groq API for skill generation

Deployment: Aruba Cloud VPS (Ubuntu 24.04)

Reverse Proxy: Nginx + SSL (Let's Encrypt – coming soon)

Tor: Onion Service for anonymous access

🚀 The Journey: From Code to Production
1️⃣ Development Phase

We started with a modular approach, keeping Gateway, Marketplace, and App separate but integrated.

Key features built:

✅ JWT authentication & user management

✅ CRUD for Skills

✅ Order system with status tracking (pending → paid → completed)

✅ Monero integration (mock mode for testing)

✅ AI Assistant (Groq) for automatic skill description generation

✅ NFT Marketplace with modern UI

✅ Multi-signature escrow system (coming soon)

2️⃣ Deploying on Aruba Cloud VPS

We chose Aruba Cloud for hosting because of:

✅ Italian data centers (GDPR compliant)

✅ Good value for money (4 vCPU, 8GB RAM, 80GB SSD)

✅ Reliable infrastructure

Deployment steps:
bash

1. Connect to VPS

2. Install dependencies

apt update && apt upgrade -y
apt install nodejs npm git -y

3. Clone repositories

git clone https://github.com/DanielIoni-creator/MyZubsterGateway.git
git clone https://github.com/DanielIoni-creator/MyZubster-Marketplace.git

4. Install and run

cd MyZubsterGateway && npm install && npm run start &
cd MyZubster-Marketplace && npm install && node server.js &

3️⃣ Configuring the Tor Onion Service

To make MyZubster accessible anonymously, we configured a Tor Onion Service:
bash

Install Tor

apt install tor -y

Configure hidden service

nano /etc/tor/torrc

Add these lines:
text

HiddenServiceDir /var/lib/tor/myzubster/
HiddenServicePort 80 127.0.0.1:4000

bash

Restart Tor

systemctl restart tor

Get the onion address

cat /var/lib/tor/myzubster/hostname

Result:
text

olqcnbdlt35k2stmmwvzhvuetu2fc4us2jnn5wg6y6wlcddihfmdomid.onion

4️⃣ Domain & SSL (Coming Soon)

The domain myzubster.com is currently propagating. Once active, we'll install SSL with Let's Encrypt:
bash

apt install nginx certbot python3-certbot-nginx -y
certbot --nginx -d myzubster.com -d www.myzubster.com

5️⃣ NFT Marketplace

We built a modern NFT Marketplace interface that displays skills as NFTs:
html

Features:

✅ Grid layout with skill images (emoji-based)

✅ Price displayed in Monero (XMR)

✅ Seller info and category

✅ Responsive design

✅ Tor-friendly (no IP displayed)

🖼️ Screenshots
NFT Marketplace

https://github.com/DanielIoni-creator/myzubster-docs/blob/main/assets/screenshot-nft-marketplace.png?raw=true
🧅 Try It Now!
Via Tor Browser

Download the Tor Browser

Open the browser and navigate to:

text

http://olqcnbdlt35k2stmmwvzhvuetu2fc4us2jnn5wg6y6wlcddihfmdomid.onion

You'll see the MyZubster homepage! 🎉

Via Clearnet
text

📋 What's Next?

Feature Status

1 Domain myzubster.com + SSL ⏳ In propagation
2 React Native Mobile App 📋 Planned
3 NFT Integration on Tari 📋 Planned
4 Multi-Signature Escrow 📋 Planned
5 PGP Encryption for Messages 📋 Planned
🤝 Contribute

Want to help build MyZubster?

GitHub: github.com/DanielIoni-creator

Documentation: github.com/DanielIoni-creator/myzubster-docs

DEV.to: dev.to/danielioni

💬 Let's Connect

📖 Blog: DEV.to - Daniel Ioni
🐦 X (Twitter): @myzubster
💼 LinkedIn: Daniel Ioni
🐙 GitHub: DanielIoni-creator
🔗 Useful Links

Tor Onion: http://olqcnbdlt35k2stmmwvzhvuetu2fc4us2jnn5wg6y6wlcddihfmdomid.onion

MyZubster Docs: github.com/DanielIoni-creator/myzubster-docs

Marketplace: github.com/DanielIoni-creator/MyZubster-Marketplace

Gateway: github.com/DanielIoni-creator/MyZubsterGateway

Built with ❤️ for privacy, freedom, and decentralization.

Try it now:
text

http://olqcnbdlt35k2stmmwvzhvuetu2fc4us2jnn5wg6y6wlcddihfmdomid.onion

✅ Instructions for Publishing

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