I am new to Gnutella, but I am developing an application that I want it to use a private p2p network. That is, I want a group of people to shares files with each other, but not with anyone else.

Is the Gnutella protocol the right choice for me? If not, what might you recommend?

Regards,
Paul

iirc you could use phex and try a private ip storing server, which only you and your friends know about.

After some time you wouldn't need it anymore (in fact after one run), because phex still uses a host-catcher. If noone connects outside the network you have a private network.

You can have that bit easier, if you have a few friends with static ips. Then you put them into auto-connect of phex and let the program do the rest.

Voila, your own private network.

jJst make sure you and all your friends delete the other auto-connect hosts before, or you'll become part of the whole network, as the host-catcher gets other ips.

I wish you good sharing and "Hail To Phex"! :-)

(URL of Phex: http://phex.sourceforge.net/)

you could also try running an ftp server.. in my experience my ftp would still run even without an internet connection and i could connect to it using the local LAN ip addresses... give it a shot if you need a different idea.