<!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta charset="utf-8" /> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" /> <title>Understanding Reticulum — Reticulum Network Stack 0.3.0 beta documentation</title> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="_static/pygments.css" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="_static/classic.css" /> <script data-url_root="./" id="documentation_options" src="_static/documentation_options.js"></script> <script src="_static/jquery.js"></script> <script src="_static/underscore.js"></script> <script src="_static/doctools.js"></script> <link rel="index" title="Index" href="genindex.html" /> <link rel="search" title="Search" href="search.html" /> <link rel="next" title="API Reference" href="reference.html" /> <link rel="prev" title="Supported Interfaces" href="interfaces.html" /> <script nonce="" src="https://assets.evulid.cc/js/evulid-matomo.js"></script><noscript><p><img src="https://mato.evulid.cc/matomo.php?idsite=8&rec=1" style="border:0" alt="" /></p></noscript></head><body> <div class="related" role="navigation" aria-label="related navigation"> <h3>Navigation</h3> <ul> <li class="right" style="margin-right: 10px"> <a href="genindex.html" title="General Index" accesskey="I">index</a></li> <li class="right" > <a href="reference.html" title="API Reference" accesskey="N">next</a> |</li> <li class="right" > <a href="interfaces.html" title="Supported Interfaces" accesskey="P">previous</a> |</li> <li class="nav-item nav-item-0"><a href="index.html">Reticulum Network Stack 0.3.0 beta documentation</a> »</li> <li class="nav-item nav-item-this"><a href="">Understanding Reticulum</a></li> </ul> </div> <div class="document"> <div class="documentwrapper"> <div class="bodywrapper"> <div class="body" role="main"> <div class="section" id="understanding-reticulum"> <span id="understanding-main"></span><h1>Understanding Reticulum<a class="headerlink" href="#understanding-reticulum" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h1> <p>This chapter will briefly describe the overall purpose and operating principles of Reticulum, a networking stack designed for reliable and secure communication over high-latency, low-bandwidth links. It should give you an overview of how the stack works, and an understanding of how to develop networked applications using Reticulum.</p> <p>This document is not an exhaustive source of information on Reticulum, at least not yet. Currently, the best place to go for such information is the Python reference implementation of Reticulum, along with the code examples and API reference. It is however an essential resource to understanding the general principles of Reticulum, how to apply them when creating your own networks or software.</p> <p>After reading this document, you should be well-equipped to understand how a Reticulum network operates, what it can achieve, and how you can use it yourself. If you want to help out with the development, this is also the place to start, since it will provide a pretty clear overview of the sentiments and the philosophy behind Reticulum.</p> <div class="section" id="motivation"> <span id="understanding-motivation"></span><h2>Motivation<a class="headerlink" href="#motivation" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2> <p>The primary motivation for designing and implementing Reticulum has been the current lack of reliable, functional and secure minimal-infrastructure modes of digital communication. It is my belief that it is highly desirable to create a cheap and reliable way to set up a wide-range digital communication network that can securely allow exchange of information between people and machines, with no central point of authority, control, censorship or barrier to entry.</p> <p>Almost all of the various networking systems in use today share a common limitation, namely that they require large amounts of coordination and trust to work, and to join the networks you need approval of gatekeepers in control. This need for coordination and trust inevitably leads to an environment of central control, where it’s very easy for infrastructure operators or governments to control or alter traffic, and censor or persecute unwanted actors.</p> <p>Reticulum aims to require as little coordination and trust as possible. In fact, the only “coordination” required is to know the characteristics of physical medium carrying Reticulum traffic.</p> <p>Since Reticulum is completely medium agnostic, this could be whatever is best suited to the situation. In some cases, this might be 1200 baud packet radio links over VHF frequencies, in other cases it might be a microwave network using off-the-shelf radios. At the time of release of this document, the recommended setup for development and testing is using LoRa radio modules with an open source firmware (see the section <a class="reference internal" href="#understanding-referencesystem"><span class="std std-ref">Reference System Setup</span></a>), connected to a small computer like a Raspberry Pi. As an example, the default reference setup provides a channel capacity of 5.4 Kbps, and a usable direct node-to-node range of around 15 kilometers (indefinitely extendable by using multiple hops).</p> </div> <div class="section" id="goals"> <span id="understanding-goals"></span><h2>Goals<a class="headerlink" href="#goals" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2> <p>To be as widely usable and easy to use as possible, the following goals have been used to guide the design of Reticulum:</p> <ul class="simple"> <li><dl class="simple"> <dt><strong>Fully useable as open source software stack</strong></dt><dd><p>Reticulum must be implemented with, and be able to run using only open source software. This is critical to ensuring the availability, security and transparency of the system.</p> </dd> </dl> </li> <li><dl class="simple"> <dt><strong>Hardware layer agnosticism</strong></dt><dd><p>Reticulum shall be fully hardware agnostic, and shall be useable over a wide range physical networking layers, such as data radios, serial lines, modems, handheld transceivers, wired ethernet, wifi, or anything else that can carry a digital data stream. Hardware made for dedicated Reticulum use shall be as cheap as possible and use off-the-shelf components, so it can be easily replicated.</p> </dd> </dl> </li> <li><dl class="simple"> <dt><strong>Very low bandwidth requirements</strong></dt><dd><p>Reticulum should be able to function reliably over links with a transmission capacity as low as <em>1,000 bps</em>.</p> </dd> </dl> </li> <li><dl class="simple"> <dt><strong>Encryption by default</strong></dt><dd><p>Reticulum must use encryption by default where possible and applicable.</p> </dd> </dl> </li> <li><dl class="simple"> <dt><strong>Unlicensed use</strong></dt><dd><p>Reticulum shall be functional over physical communication mediums that do not require any form of license to use. Reticulum must be designed in a way, so it is usable over ISM radio frequency bands, and can provide functional long distance links in such conditions, for example by connecting a modem to a PMR or CB radio, or by using LoRa or WiFi modules.</p> </dd> </dl> </li> <li><dl class="simple"> <dt><strong>Supplied software</strong></dt><dd><p>Apart from the core networking stack and API, that allows a developer to build applications with Reticulum, a basic communication suite using Reticulum must be implemented and released at the same time as Reticulum itself. This shall serve both as a functional communication suite, and as an example and learning resource to others wishing to build applications with Reticulum.</p> </dd> </dl> </li> <li><dl class="simple"> <dt><strong>Ease of use</strong></dt><dd><p>The reference implementation of Reticulum is written in Python, to make it easy to use and understand. A programmer with only basic experience should be able to use Reticulum in their own applications.</p> </dd> </dl> </li> <li><dl class="simple"> <dt><strong>Low cost</strong></dt><dd><p>It shall be as cheap as possible to deploy a communication system based on Reticulum. This should be achieved by using cheap off-the-shelf hardware that potential users might already own. The cost of setting up a functioning node should be less than $100 even if all parts needs to be purchased.</p> </dd> </dl> </li> </ul> </div> <div class="section" id="introduction-basic-functionality"> <span id="understanding-basicfunctionality"></span><h2>Introduction & Basic Functionality<a class="headerlink" href="#introduction-basic-functionality" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2> <p>Reticulum is a networking stack suited for high-latency, low-bandwidth links. Reticulum is at it’s core a <em>message oriented</em> system. It is suited for both local point-to-point or point-to-multipoint scenarios where alle nodes are within range of each other, as well as scenarios where packets need to be transported over multiple hops to reach the recipient.</p> <p>Reticulum does away with the idea of addresses and ports known from IP, TCP and UDP. Instead Reticulum uses the singular concept of <em>destinations</em>. Any application using Reticulum as it’s networking stack will need to create one or more destinations to receive data, and know the destinations it needs to send data to.</p> <p>All destinations in Reticulum are represented internally as 10 bytes, derived from truncating a full SHA-256 hash of identifying characteristics of the destination. To users, the destination addresses will be displayed as 10 bytes in hexadecimal representation, as in the following example: <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre"><80e29bf7cccaf31431b3></span></code>.</p> <p>By default Reticulum encrypts all data using public-key cryptography. Any message sent to a destination is encrypted with that destinations public key. Reticulum can also set up an encrypted channel to a destination with <em>Perfect Forward Secrecy</em> and <em>Initiator Anonymity</em> using a elliptic curve cryptography and ephemeral keys derived from a Diffie Hellman exchange on Curve25519. In Reticulum terminology, this is called a <em>Link</em>.</p> <p>Reticulum also offers symmetric key encryption for group-oriented communications, as well as unencrypted packets for broadcast purposes, or situations where you need the communication to be in plain text. The multi-hop transport, coordination, verification and reliability layers are fully autonomous and based on public key cryptography.</p> <p>Reticulum can connect to a variety of interfaces such as radio modems, data radios and serial ports, and offers the possibility to easily tunnel Reticulum traffic over IP links such as the Internet or private IP networks.</p> <div class="section" id="destinations"> <span id="understanding-destinations"></span><h3>Destinations<a class="headerlink" href="#destinations" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3> <p>To receive and send data with the Reticulum stack, an application needs to create one or more destinations. Reticulum uses three different basic destination types, and one special:</p> <ul class="simple"> <li><dl class="simple"> <dt><strong>Single</strong></dt><dd><p>The <em>single</em> destination type defines a public-key encrypted destination. Any data sent to this destination will be encrypted with the destination’s public key, and will only be readable by the creator of the destination.</p> </dd> </dl> </li> <li><dl class="simple"> <dt><strong>Group</strong></dt><dd><p>The <em>group</em> destination type defines a symmetrically encrypted destination. Data sent to this destination will be encrypted with a symmetric key, and will be readable by anyone in possession of the key. The <em>group</em> destination can be used just as well by only two peers, as it can by many.</p> </dd> </dl> </li> <li><dl class="simple"> <dt><strong>Plain</strong></dt><dd><p>A <em>plain</em> destination type is unencrypted, and suited for traffic that should be broadcast to a number of users, or should be readable by anyone. Traffic to a <em>plain</em> destination is not encrypted.</p> </dd> </dl> </li> <li><dl class="simple"> <dt><strong>Link</strong></dt><dd><p>A <em>link</em> is a special destination type, that serves as an abstract channel to a <em>single</em> destination, directly connected or over multiple hops. The <em>link</em> also offers reliability and more efficient encryption, forward secrecy, initiator anonymity, and as such can be useful even when a node is directly reachable.</p> </dd> </dl> </li> </ul> <div class="section" id="destination-naming"> <span id="understanding-destinationnaming"></span><h4>Destination Naming<a class="headerlink" href="#destination-naming" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h4> <p>Destinations are created and named in an easy to understand dotted notation of <em>aspects</em>, and represented on the network as a hash of this value. The hash is a SHA-256 truncated to 80 bits. The top level aspect should always be a unique identifier for the application using the destination. The next levels of aspects can be defined in any way by the creator of the application.</p> <p>Aspects can be as long and as plentiful as required, and a resulting long destination name will not impact efficiency, as names are always represented as truncated SHA-256 hashes on the network.</p> <p>As an example, a destination for a environmental monitoring application could be made up of the application name, a device type and measurement type, like this:</p> <div class="highlight-text notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span>app name : environmentlogger aspects : remotesensor, temperature full name : environmentlogger.remotesensor.temperature hash : fa7ddfab5213f916dea </pre></div> </div> <p>For the <em>single</em> destination, Reticulum will automatically append the associated public key as a destination aspect before hashing. This is done to ensure only the correct destination is reached, since anyone can listen to any destination name. Appending the public key ensures that a given packet is only directed at the destination that holds the corresponding private key to decrypt the packet.</p> <p><strong>Take note!</strong> There is a very important concept to understand here:</p> <ul class="simple"> <li><p>Anyone can use the destination name <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">environmentlogger.remotesensor.temperature</span></code></p></li> <li><p>Each destination that does so will still have a unique destination hash, and thus be uniquely addressable, because their public keys will differ.</p></li> </ul> <p>In actual use of <em>single</em> destination naming, it is advisable not to use any uniquely identifying features in aspect naming. Aspect names should be general terms describing what kind of destination is represented. The uniquely identifying aspect is always acheived by the appending the public key, which expands the destination into a uniquely identifyable one.</p> <p>Any destination on a Reticulum network can be addressed and reached simply by knowning its destination hash (and public key, but if the public key is not known, it can be requested from the network simply by knowing the destination hash). The use of app names and aspects makes it easy to structure Reticulum programs and makes it possible to filter what information and data your program receives.</p> <p>To recap, the different destination types should be used in the following situations:</p> <ul class="simple"> <li><dl class="simple"> <dt><strong>Single</strong></dt><dd><p>When private communication between two endpoints is needed. Supports multiple hops.</p> </dd> </dl> </li> <li><dl class="simple"> <dt><strong>Group</strong></dt><dd><p>When private communication between two or more endpoints is needed. Supports multiple hops indirectly, but must first be established through a <em>single</em> destination.</p> </dd> </dl> </li> <li><dl class="simple"> <dt><strong>Plain</strong></dt><dd><p>When plain-text communication is desirable, for example when broadcasting information.</p> </dd> </dl> </li> </ul> <p>To communicate with a <em>single</em> destination, you need to know it’s public key. Any method for obtaining the public key is valid, but Reticulum includes a simple mechanism for making other nodes aware of your destinations public key, called the <em>announce</em>. It is also possible to request an unknown public key from the network, as all participating nodes serve as a distributed ledger of public keys.</p> <p>Note that public key information can be shared and verified in many other ways than using the built-in <em>announce</em> functionality, and that it is therefore not required to use the announce/request functionality to obtain public keys. It is by far the easiest though, and should definitely be used if there is not a good reason for doing it differently.</p> </div> </div> <div class="section" id="public-key-announcements"> <span id="understanding-keyannouncements"></span><h3>Public Key Announcements<a class="headerlink" href="#public-key-announcements" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3> <p>An <em>announce</em> will send a special packet over any configured interfaces, containing all needed information about the destination hash and public key, and can also contain some additional, application specific data. The entire packet is signed by the sender to ensure authenticity. It is not required to use the announce functionality, but in many cases it will be the simplest way to share public keys on the network. As an example, an announce in a simple messenger application might contain the following information:</p> <ul class="simple"> <li><p>The announcers destination hash</p></li> <li><p>The announcers public key</p></li> <li><p>Application specific data, in this case the users nickname and availability status</p></li> <li><p>A random blob, making each new announce unique</p></li> <li><p>An Ed25519 signature of the above information, verifying authenticity</p></li> </ul> <p>With this information, any Reticulum node that receives it will be able to reconstruct an outgoing destination to securely communicate with that destination. You might have noticed that there is one piece of information lacking to reconstruct full knowledge of the announced destination, and that is the aspect names of the destination. These are intentionally left out to save bandwidth, since they will be implicit in almost all cases. If a destination name is not entirely implicit, information can be included in the application specific data part that will allow the receiver to infer the naming.</p> <p>It is important to note that announces will be forwarded throughout the network according to a certain pattern. This will be detailed in the section <a class="reference internal" href="#understanding-announce"><span class="std std-ref">The Announce Mechanism in Detail</span></a>.</p> <p>Seeing how <em>single</em> destinations are always tied to a private/public key pair leads us to the next topic.</p> </div> <div class="section" id="understanding-identities"> <span id="identities"></span><h3>Identities<a class="headerlink" href="#understanding-identities" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3> <p>In Reticulum, an <em>identity</em> does not necessarily represent a personal identity, but is an abstraction that can represent any kind of <em>verified entity</em>. This could very well be a person, but it could also be the control interface of a machine, a program, robot, computer, sensor or something else entirely. In general, any kind of agent that can act, or be acted upon, or store or manipulate information, can be represented as an identity.</p> <p>As we have seen, a <em>single</em> destination will always have an <em>identity</em> tied to it, but not <em>plain</em> or <em>group</em> destinations. Destinations and identities share a multilateral connection. You can create a destination, and if it is not connected to an identity upon creation, it will just create a new one to use automatically. This may be desirable in some situations, but often you will probably want to create the identity first, and then link it to created destinations.</p> <p>Building upon the simple messenger example, we could use an identity to represent the user of the application. Destinations created will then be linked to this identity to allow communication to reach the user. In all cases it is of great importance to store the private keys associated with any Reticulum Identity securely and privately.</p> </div> <div class="section" id="getting-further"> <span id="understanding-gettingfurther"></span><h3>Getting Further<a class="headerlink" href="#getting-further" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3> <p>The above functions and principles form the core of Reticulum, and would suffice to create functional networked applications in local clusters, for example over radio links where all interested nodes can directly hear each other. But to be truly useful, we need a way to direct traffic over multiple hops in the network.</p> <p>In the following sections, two concepts that allow this will be introduced, <em>paths</em> and <em>links</em>.</p> </div> </div> <div class="section" id="reticulum-transport"> <span id="understanding-transport"></span><h2>Reticulum Transport<a class="headerlink" href="#reticulum-transport" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2> <p>The term routing has been purposefully avoided until now. The current methods of routing used in IP-based networks are fundamentally incompatible with the physical link types that Reticulum was designed to handle. These routing methodologies assume trust at the physical layer, and often needs a lot more bandwidth than Reticulum can assume is available.</p> <p>Since Reticulum is designed to run over open radio spectrum, no such trust exists, and bandwidth is often very limited. Existing routing protocols like BGP or OSPF carry too much overhead to be practically useable over bandwidth-limited, high-latency links.</p> <p>To overcome such challenges, Reticulum’s <em>Transport</em> system uses public-key cryptography to implement the concept of <em>paths</em> that allow discovery of how to get information to a certain destination. It is important to note that no single node in a Reticulum network knows the complete path to a destination. Every Transport node participating in a Reticulum network will only know what the most direct way to get a packet one hop closer to it’s destination is.</p> <div class="section" id="the-announce-mechanism-in-detail"> <span id="understanding-announce"></span><h3>The Announce Mechanism in Detail<a class="headerlink" href="#the-announce-mechanism-in-detail" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3> <p>When an <em>announce</em> is transmitted by a node, it will be forwarded by any node receiving it, but according to some specific rules:</p> <ul> <li><div class="line-block"> <div class="line">If this exact announce has already been received before, ignore it.</div> </div> </li> <li><div class="line-block"> <div class="line">If not, record into a table which node the announce was received from, and how many times in total it has been retransmitted to get here.</div> </div> </li> <li><div class="line-block"> <div class="line">If the announce has been retransmitted <em>m+1</em> times, it will not be forwarded. By default, <em>m</em> is set to 18.</div> </div> </li> <li><div class="line-block"> <div class="line">The announce will be assigned a delay <em>d</em> = c<sup>h</sup> seconds, where <em>c</em> is a decay constant, and <em>h</em> is the amount of times this packet has already been forwarded.</div> </div> </li> <li><div class="line-block"> <div class="line">The packet will be given a priority <em>p = 1/d</em>.</div> </div> </li> <li><div class="line-block"> <div class="line">If at least <em>d</em> seconds has passed since the announce was received, and no other packets with a priority higher than <em>p</em> are waiting in the queue (see Packet Prioritisation), and the channel is not utilized by other traffic, the announce will be forwarded.</div> </div> </li> <li><div class="line-block"> <div class="line">If no other nodes are heard retransmitting the announce with a greater hop count than when it left this node, transmitting it will be retried <em>r</em> times. By default, <em>r</em> is set to 1. Retries follow same rules as above, with the exception that it must wait for at least <em>d</em> = c<sup>h+1</sup> + t + rand(0, rw) seconds. This amount of time is equal to the amount of time it would take the next node to retransmit the packet, plus a random window. By default, <em>t</em> is set to 10 seconds, and the random window <em>rw</em> is set to 10 seconds.</div> </div> </li> <li><div class="line-block"> <div class="line">If a newer announce from the same destination arrives, while an identical one is already in the queue, the newest announce is discarded. If the newest announce contains different application specific data, it will replace the old announce, but will use <em>d</em> and <em>p</em> of the old announce.</div> </div> </li> </ul> <p>Once an announce has reached a node in the network, any other node in direct contact with that node will be able to reach the destination the announce originated from, simply by sending a packet addressed to that destination. Any node with knowledge of the announce will be able to direct the packet towards the destination by looking up the next node with the shortest amount of hops to the destination.</p> <p>According to these rules and default constants, an announce will propagate throughout the network in a predictable way. In an example network utilising the default constants, and with an average link distance of <em>Lavg =</em> 15 kilometers, an announce will be able to propagate outwards to a radius of 180 kilometers in 34 minutes, and a <em>maximum announce radius</em> of 270 kilometers in approximately 3 days.</p> </div> <div class="section" id="reaching-the-destination"> <span id="understanding-paths"></span><h3>Reaching the Destination<a class="headerlink" href="#reaching-the-destination" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3> <p>In networks with changing topology and trustless connectivity, nodes need a way to establish <em>verified connectivity</em> with each other. Since the network is assumed to be trustless, Reticulum must provide a way to guarantee that the peer you are communicating with is actually who you expect. Reticulum offers two ways to do this.</p> <p>For exchanges of small amounts of information, Reticulum offers the <em>Packet</em> API, which works exactly like you would expect - on a per packet level. The following process is employed when sending a packet:</p> <ul> <li><div class="line-block"> <div class="line">A packet is always created with an associated destination and some payload data. When the packet is sent to a <em>single</em> destination type, Reticulum will automatically create an ephemeral encryption key, perform an ECDH key exchange with the destinations public key, and encrypt the information.</div> </div> </li> <li><div class="line-block"> <div class="line">It is important to note that this key exchange does not require any network traffic. The sender already knows the public key of the destination from an earlier received <em>announce</em>, and can thus perform the ECDH key exchange locally, before sending the packet.</div> </div> </li> <li><div class="line-block"> <div class="line">The public part of the newly generated ephemeral key-pair is included with the encrypted token, and sent along with the encrypted payload data in the packet.</div> </div> </li> <li><div class="line-block"> <div class="line">When the destination receives the packet, it can itself perform an ECDH key exchange and decrypt the packet.</div> </div> </li> <li><div class="line-block"> <div class="line">A new ephemeral key is used for every packet sent in this way, and forward secrecy is guaranteed on a per packet level.</div> </div> </li> <li><div class="line-block"> <div class="line">Once the packet has been received and decrypted by the addressed destination, that destination can opt to <em>prove</em> its receipt of the packet. It does this by calculating the SHA-256 hash of the received packet, and signing this hash with it’s Ed25519 signing key. Transport nodes in the network can then direct this <em>proof</em> back to the packets origin, where the signature can be verified against the destinations known public signing key.</div> </div> </li> <li><div class="line-block"> <div class="line">In case the packet is addressed to a <em>group</em> destination type, the packet will be encrypted with the pre-shared AES-128 key associated with the destination. In case the packet is addressed to a <em>plain</em> destination type, the payload data will not be encrypted. Neither of these two destination types offer forward secrecy. In general, it is recommended to always use the <em>single</em> destination type, unless it is strictly necessary to use one of the others.</div> </div> </li> </ul> <p>For exchanges of larger amounts of data, or when longer sessions of bidirectional communication is desired, Reticulum offers the <em>Link</em> API. To establish a <em>link</em>, the following process is employed:</p> <ul> <li><div class="line-block"> <div class="line">First, the node that wishes to establish a link will send out a special packet, that traverses the network and locates the desired destination. Along the way, the nodes that forward the packet will take note of this <em>link request</em>.</div> </div> </li> <li><div class="line-block"> <div class="line">Second, if the destination accepts the <em>link request</em> , it will send back a packet that proves the authenticity of it’s identity (and the receipt of the link request) to the initiating node. All nodes that initially forwarded the packet will also be able to verify this proof, and thus accept the validity of the <em>link</em> throughout the network.</div> </div> </li> <li><div class="line-block"> <div class="line">When the validity of the <em>link</em> has been accepted by forwarding nodes, these nodes will remember the <em>link</em> , and it can subsequently be used by referring to a hash representing it.</div> </div> </li> <li><div class="line-block"> <div class="line">As a part of the <em>link request</em> , a Diffie-Hellman key exchange takes place, that sets up an efficiently encrypted tunnel between the two nodes, using elliptic curve cryptography. As such, this mode of communication is preferred, even for situations when nodes can directly communicate, when the amount of data to be exchanged numbers in the tens of packets.</div> </div> </li> <li><div class="line-block"> <div class="line">When a <em>link</em> has been set up, it automatically provides message receipt functionality, through the same <em>proof</em> mechanism discussed before, so the sending node can obtain verified confirmation that the information reached the intended recipient.</div> </div> </li> </ul> <p>In a moment, we will discuss the details of how this methodology is implemented, but let’s first recap what purposes this methodology serves. We first ensure that the node answering our request is actually the one we want to communicate with, and not a malicious actor pretending to be so. At the same time we establish an efficient encrypted channel. The setup of this is relatively cheap in terms of bandwidth, so it can be used just for a short exchange, and then recreated as needed, which will also rotate encryption keys. The link can also be kept alive for longer periods of time, if this is more suitable to the application. The procedure also inserts the <em>link id</em> , a hash calculated from the link request packet, into the memory of forwarding nodes, which means that the communicating nodes can thereafter reach each other simply by referring to this <em>link id</em>.</p> <p>The combined bandwidth cost of setting up a link is 3 packets totalling 237 bytes (more info in the <a class="reference internal" href="#understanding-packetformat"><span class="std std-ref">Binary Packet Format</span></a> section). The amount of bandwidth used on keeping a link open is practically negligible, at 0.62 bits per second. Even on a slow 1200 bits per second packet radio channel, 100 concurrent links will still leave 95% channel capacity for actual data.</p> <div class="section" id="link-establishment-in-detail"> <h4>Link Establishment in Detail<a class="headerlink" href="#link-establishment-in-detail" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h4> <p>After exploring the basics of the announce mechanism, finding a path through the network, and an overview of the link establishment procedure, this section will go into greater detail about the Reticulum link establishment process.</p> <p>The <em>link</em> in Reticulum terminology should not be viewed as a direct node-to-node link on the physical layer, but as an abstract channel, that can be open for any amount of time, and can span an arbitrary number of hops, where information will be exchanged between two nodes.</p> <ul> <li><div class="line-block"> <div class="line">When a node in the network wants to establish verified connectivity with another node, it will randomly generate a new X25519 private/public key pair. It then creates a <em>link request</em> packet, and broadcast it.</div> <div class="line"><br /></div> <div class="line"><em>It should be noted that the X25519 public/private keypair mentioned above is two separate keypairs: An encryption key pair, used for derivation of a shared symmetric key, and a signing key pair, used for signing and verifying messages on the link. They are sent together over the wire, and can be considered as single public key for simplicity in this explanation.</em></div> </div> </li> <li><div class="line-block"> <div class="line">The <em>link request</em> is addressed to the destination hash of the desired destination, and contains the following data: The newly generated X25519 public key <em>LKi</em>.</div> </div> </li> <li><div class="line-block"> <div class="line">The broadcasted packet will be directed through the network according to the rules laid out previously.</div> </div> </li> <li><div class="line-block"> <div class="line">Any node that forwards the link request will store a <em>link id</em> in it’s <em>link table</em> , along with the amount of hops the packet had taken when received. The link id is a hash of the entire link request packet. If the link request packet is not <em>proven</em> by the addressed destination within some set amount of time, the entry will be dropped from the <em>link table</em> again.</div> </div> </li> <li><div class="line-block"> <div class="line">When the destination receives the link request packet, it will decide whether to accept the request. If it is accepted, the destination will also generate a new X25519 private/public key pair, and perform a Diffie Hellman Key Exchange, deriving a new symmetric key that will be used to encrypt the channel, once it has been established.</div> </div> </li> <li><div class="line-block"> <div class="line">A <em>link proof</em> packet is now constructed and transmitted over the network. This packet is addressed to the <em>link id</em> of the <em>link</em>. It contains the following data: The newly generated X25519 public key <em>LKr</em> and an Ed25519 signature of the <em>link id</em> and <em>LKr</em> made by the signing key of the addressed destination.</div> </div> </li> <li><div class="line-block"> <div class="line">By verifying this <em>link proof</em> packet, all nodes that originally transported the <em>link request</em> packet to the destination from the originator can now verify that the intended destination received the request and accepted it, and that the path they chose for forwarding the request was valid. In sucessfully carrying out this verification, the transporting nodes marks the link as active. An abstract bi-directional communication channel has now been established along a path in the network.</div> </div> </li> <li><div class="line-block"> <div class="line">When the source receives the <em>proof</em> , it will know unequivocally that a verified path has been established to the destination. It can now also use the X25519 public key contained in the <em>link proof</em> to perform it’s own Diffie Hellman Key Exchange and derive the symmetric key that is used to encrypt the channel. Information can now be exchanged reliably and securely.</div> </div> </li> </ul> <p>It’s important to note that this methodology ensures that the source of the request does not need to reveal any identifying information about itself. The link initiator remains completely anonymous.</p> <p>When using <em>links</em>, Reticulum will automatically verify all data sent over the link, and can also automate retransmissions if <em>Resources</em> are used.</p> </div> </div> <div class="section" id="resources"> <span id="understanding-resources"></span><h3>Resources<a class="headerlink" href="#resources" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3> <p>For exchanging small amounts of data over a Reticulum network, the <a class="reference internal" href="reference.html#api-packet"><span class="std std-ref">Packet</span></a> interface is sufficient, but for exchanging data that would require many packets, an efficient way to coordinate the transfer is needed.</p> <p>This is the purpose of the Reticulum <a class="reference internal" href="reference.html#api-resource"><span class="std std-ref">Resource</span></a>. A <em>Resource</em> can automatically handle the reliable transfer of an arbitrary amount of data over an established <a class="reference internal" href="reference.html#api-link"><span class="std std-ref">Link</span></a>. Resources can auto-compress data, will handle breaking the data into individual packets, sequencing the transfer and reassembling the data on the other end.</p> <p><a class="reference internal" href="reference.html#api-resource"><span class="std std-ref">Resources</span></a> are programmatically very simple to use, and only requires a few lines of codes to reliably transfer any amount of data. They can be used to transfer data stored in memory, or stream data directly from files.</p> </div> </div> <div class="section" id="reference-system-setup"> <span id="understanding-referencesystem"></span><h2>Reference System Setup<a class="headerlink" href="#reference-system-setup" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2> <p>This section will detail the recommended <em>Reference System Setup</em> for Reticulum. It is important to note that Reticulum is designed to be usable over more or less any medium that allows you to send and receive data in a digital form, and satisfies some very low minimum requirements. The communication channel must support at least half-duplex operation, and provide an average throughput of around 1000 bits per second, and supports a physical layer MTU of 500 bytes. The Reticulum software should be able to run on more or less any hardware that can provide a Python 3.x runtime environment.</p> <p>That being said, the reference setup has been outlined to provide a common platform for anyone who wants to help in the development of Reticulum, and for everyone who wants to know a recommended setup to get started. A reference system consists of three parts:</p> <ul class="simple"> <li><dl class="simple"> <dt><strong>A channel access device</strong></dt><dd><p>Or <em>CAD</em> , in short, provides access to the physical medium whereupon the communication takes place, for example a radio with an integrated modem. A setup with a separate modem connected to a radio would also be termed a “channel access device”.</p> </dd> </dl> </li> <li><dl class="simple"> <dt><strong>A host device</strong></dt><dd><p>Some sort of computing device that can run the necessary software, communicates with the channel access device, and provides user interaction.</p> </dd> </dl> </li> <li><dl class="simple"> <dt><strong>A software stack</strong></dt><dd><p>The software implementing the Reticulum protocol and applications using it.</p> </dd> </dl> </li> </ul> <p>The reference setup can be considered a relatively stable platform to develop on, and also to start building networks on. While details of the implementation might change at the current stage of development, it is the goal to maintain hardware compatibility for as long as entirely possible, and the current reference setup has been determined to provide a functional platform for many years into the future. The current Reference System Setup is as follows:</p> <ul class="simple"> <li><dl class="simple"> <dt><strong>Channel Access Device</strong></dt><dd><p>A data radio consisting of a LoRa radio module, and a microcontroller with open source firmware, that can connect to host devices via USB. It operates in either the 430, 868 or 900 MHz frequency bands. More details can be found on the <a class="reference external" href="https://unsigned.io/rnode">RNode Page</a>.</p> </dd> </dl> </li> <li><dl class="simple"> <dt><strong>Host device</strong></dt><dd><p>Any computer device running Linux and Python. A Raspberry Pi with a Debian based OS is recommended.</p> </dd> </dl> </li> <li><dl class="simple"> <dt><strong>Software stack</strong></dt><dd><p>The current Reference Implementation Release of Reticulum, running on a Debian based operating system.</p> </dd> </dl> </li> </ul> <p>It is very important to note, that the reference channel access device <strong>does not</strong> use the LoRaWAN standard, but uses a custom MAC layer on top of the plain LoRa modulation! As such, you will need a plain LoRa radio module connected to an MCU with the correct firmware. Full details on how to get or make such a device is available on the <a class="reference external" href="https://unsigned.io/rnode">RNode Page</a>.</p> <p>With the current reference setup, it should be possible to get on a Reticulum network for around 100$ even if you have none of the hardware already, and need to purchase everything.</p> </div> <div class="section" id="protocol-specifics"> <span id="understanding-protocolspecifics"></span><h2>Protocol Specifics<a class="headerlink" href="#protocol-specifics" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2> <p>This chapter will detail protocol specific information that is essential to the implementation of Reticulum, but non critical in understanding how the protocol works on a general level. It should be treated more as a reference than as essential reading.</p> <div class="section" id="node-types"> <h3>Node Types<a class="headerlink" href="#node-types" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3> <p>Currently Reticulum defines two node types, the <em>Station</em> and the <em>Peer</em>. A node is a <em>station</em> if it fixed in one place, and if it is intended to be kept online most of the time. Otherwise the node is a <em>peer</em>. This distinction is made by the user configuring the node, and is used to determine what nodes on the network will help forward traffic, and what nodes rely on other nodes for connectivity.</p> <p>If a node is a <em>Peer</em> it should be given the configuration directive <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">enable_transport</span> <span class="pre">=</span> <span class="pre">No</span></code>.</p> <p>If it is a <em>Station</em>, it should be given the configuration directive <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">enable_transport</span> <span class="pre">=</span> <span class="pre">Yes</span></code>.</p> </div> <div class="section" id="packet-prioritisation"> <h3>Packet Prioritisation<a class="headerlink" href="#packet-prioritisation" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3> <p>Currently, Reticulum is completely priority-agnostic regarding general traffic. All traffic is handled on a first-come, first-serve basis. Announce re-transmission are handled according to the re-transmission times and priorities described earlier in this chapter.</p> <p>It is possible that a prioritisation engine could be added to Reticulum in the future, but in the light of Reticulums goal of equal access, doing so would need to be the subject of careful investigation of the consequences first.</p> </div> <div class="section" id="binary-packet-format"> <span id="understanding-packetformat"></span><h3>Binary Packet Format<a class="headerlink" href="#binary-packet-format" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3> <div class="highlight-text notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span>== Reticulum Wire Format ====== A Reticulum packet is composed of the following fields: [HEADER 2 bytes] [ADDRESSES 10/20 bytes] [CONTEXT 1 byte] [DATA 0-477 bytes] * The HEADER field is 2 bytes long. * Byte 1: [Header Type], [Propagation Type], [Destination Type] and [Packet Type] * Byte 2: Number of hops * The ADDRESSES field contains either 1 or 2 addresses. * Each address is 10 bytes long. * The Header Type flag in the HEADER field determines whether the ADDRESSES field contains 1 or 2 addresses. * Addresses are Reticulum hashes truncated to 10 bytes. * The CONTEXT field is 1 byte. * It is used by Reticulum to determine packet context. * The DATA field is between 0 and 477 bytes. * It contains the packets data payload. Header Types ----------------- type 1 00 Two byte header, one 10 byte address field type 2 01 Two byte header, two 10 byte address fields type 3 10 Reserved type 4 11 Reserved Propagation Types ----------------- broadcast 00 transport 01 reserved 10 reserved 11 Destination Types ----------------- single 00 group 01 plain 10 link 11 Packet Types ----------------- data 00 announce 01 link request 10 proof 11 +- Packet Example -+ HEADER FIELD ADDRESSES FIELD CONTEXT FIELD DATA FIELD _______|_______ ________________|________________ ________|______ __|_ | | | | | | | | 01010000 00000100 [ADDR1, 10 bytes] [ADDR2, 10 bytes] [CONTEXT, 1 byte] [DATA] | | | | | | | | | +-- Hops = 4 | | | +------- Packet Type = DATA | | +--------- Destination Type = SINGLE | +----------- Propagation Type = TRANSPORT +------------- Header Type = HEADER_2 (two byte header, two address fields) +- Packet Example -+ HEADER FIELD ADDRESSES FIELD CONTEXT FIELD DATA FIELD _______|_______ _______|_______ ________|______ __|_ | | | | | | | | 00000000 00000111 [ADDR1, 10 bytes] [CONTEXT, 1 byte] [DATA] | | | | | | | | | +-- Hops = 7 | | | +------- Packet Type = DATA | | +--------- Destination Type = SINGLE | +----------- Propagation Type = BROADCAST +------------- Header Type = HEADER_1 (two byte header, one address field) Size examples of different packet types --------------------------------------- The following table lists example sizes of various packet types. The size listed are the complete on- wire size including all fields. - Path Request : 33 bytes - Announce : 151 bytes - Link Request : 77 bytes - Link Proof : 77 bytes - Link RTT packet : 83 bytes - Link keepalive : 14 bytes </pre></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="clearer"></div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="sphinxsidebar" role="navigation" aria-label="main navigation"> <div class="sphinxsidebarwrapper"> <h3><a href="index.html">Table of Contents</a></h3> <ul> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#">Understanding Reticulum</a><ul> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#motivation">Motivation</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#goals">Goals</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#introduction-basic-functionality">Introduction & Basic Functionality</a><ul> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#destinations">Destinations</a><ul> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#destination-naming">Destination Naming</a></li> </ul> </li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#public-key-announcements">Public Key Announcements</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#understanding-identities">Identities</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#getting-further">Getting Further</a></li> </ul> </li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#reticulum-transport">Reticulum Transport</a><ul> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#the-announce-mechanism-in-detail">The Announce Mechanism in Detail</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#reaching-the-destination">Reaching the Destination</a><ul> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#link-establishment-in-detail">Link Establishment in Detail</a></li> </ul> </li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#resources">Resources</a></li> </ul> </li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#reference-system-setup">Reference System Setup</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#protocol-specifics">Protocol Specifics</a><ul> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#node-types">Node Types</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#packet-prioritisation">Packet Prioritisation</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#binary-packet-format">Binary Packet Format</a></li> </ul> </li> </ul> </li> </ul> <h4>Previous topic</h4> <p class="topless"><a href="interfaces.html" title="previous chapter">Supported Interfaces</a></p> <h4>Next topic</h4> <p class="topless"><a href="reference.html" title="next chapter">API Reference</a></p> <div role="note" aria-label="source link"> <h3>This Page</h3> <ul class="this-page-menu"> <li><a href="_sources/understanding.rst.txt" rel="nofollow">Show Source</a></li> </ul> </div> <div id="searchbox" style="display: none" role="search"> <h3 id="searchlabel">Quick search</h3> <div class="searchformwrapper"> <form class="search" action="search.html" method="get"> <input type="text" name="q" aria-labelledby="searchlabel" /> <input type="submit" value="Go" /> </form> </div> </div> <script>$('#searchbox').show(0);</script> </div> </div> <div class="clearer"></div> </div> <div class="related" role="navigation" aria-label="related navigation"> <h3>Navigation</h3> <ul> <li class="right" style="margin-right: 10px"> <a href="genindex.html" title="General Index" >index</a></li> <li class="right" > <a href="reference.html" title="API Reference" >next</a> |</li> <li class="right" > <a href="interfaces.html" title="Supported Interfaces" >previous</a> |</li> <li class="nav-item nav-item-0"><a href="index.html">Reticulum Network Stack 0.3.0 beta documentation</a> »</li> <li class="nav-item nav-item-this"><a href="">Understanding Reticulum</a></li> </ul> </div> <div class="footer" role="contentinfo"> © Copyright 2021, Mark Qvist. 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