What is Reticulum? - Reticulum Network Stack 1.3.5 documentation
Contents
Menu
Expand
Light mode
Dark mode
Auto light/dark, in light mode
Auto light/dark, in dark mode
Skip to content
Reticulum Network Stack 1.3.5 documentation
What is Reticulum?
Getting Started Fast
Zen of Reticulum
Programs Using Reticulum
Using Reticulum on Your System
Understanding Reticulum
Communications Hardware
Configuring Interfaces
Building Networks
Distributed Development
Git Over Reticulum
Support Reticulum
Code Examples
Reticulum License
API Reference
Back to top
What is Reticulum?¶
Reticulum is a cryptography-based networking stack for building both local and<br>wide-area networks with readily available hardware, that can continue to operate<br>under adverse conditions, such as extremely low bandwidth and very high latency.
To understand the foundational philosophy and goals of this system, read the<br>Zen of Reticulum.
Reticulum allows you to build wide-area networks with off-the-shelf tools, and<br>offers end-to-end encryption, forward secrecy, autoconfiguring cryptographically<br>backed multi-hop transport, efficient addressing, unforgeable packet<br>acknowledgements and more.
From a users perspective, Reticulum allows the creation of applications that<br>respect and empower the autonomy and sovereignty of communities and individuals.<br>Reticulum enables secure digital communication that cannot be subjected to<br>outside control, manipulation or censorship.
Reticulum enables the construction of both small and potentially planetary-scale<br>networks, without any need for hierarchical or bureaucratic structures to control<br>or manage them, while ensuring individuals and communities full sovereignty<br>over their own network segments.
Reticulum is a complete networking stack , and does not need IP or higher<br>layers, although it is easy to utilise IP (with TCP or UDP) as the underlying<br>carrier for Reticulum. It is therefore trivial to tunnel Reticulum over the<br>Internet or private IP networks. Reticulum is built directly on cryptographic<br>principles, allowing resilience and stable functionality in open and trustless<br>networks.
No kernel modules or drivers are required. Reticulum can run completely in<br>userland, and will run on practically any system that runs Python 3. Reticulum<br>runs well even on small single-board computers like the Pi Zero.
Current Status¶
All core protocol features are implemented and functioning, but additions will probably occur as<br>real-world use is explored. The API and wire-format can be considered complete and stable, but<br>could change if absolutely warranted.
Reference Implementation¶
The Python code, for which this documentation is written, and known as the Reticulum Network Stack,<br>is the Reference Implementation of Reticulum. The Reticulum Protocol is defined entirely<br>and authoritatively by this reference implementation, and this manual. It is maintained by Mark Qvist,<br>identified by the Reticulum Identity .
Compatibility with the Reticulum Protocol is defined as having full interoperability,<br>and sufficient functional parity with this reference implementation. Any specific protocol<br>implementation that achieves this is Reticulum. Any that does not is not Reticulum.
The reference implementation is licensed under the Reticulum License.
The Reticulum Protocol was dedicated to the Public Domain in 2016.
What does Reticulum Offer?¶
Coordination-less globally unique addressing and identification
Fully self-configuring multi-hop routing over heterogeneous carriers
Flexible scalability over heterogeneous topologies
Reticulum can carry data over any mixture of physical mediums and topologies
Low-bandwidth networks can co-exist and interoperate with large, high-bandwidth networks
Initiator anonymity, communicate without revealing your identity
Reticulum does not include source addresses on any packets
Asymmetric X25519 encryption and Ed25519 signatures as a basis for all communication
The foundational Reticulum Identity Keys are 512-bit Elliptic Curve keysets
Forward Secrecy is available for all communication types, both for single packets and over links
Reticulum uses the following format for encrypted tokens:
Ephemeral per-packet and link keys and derived from an ECDH key exchange on Curve25519
AES-256 in CBC mode with PKCS7 padding
HMAC using SHA256 for authentication
IVs are generated through os.urandom()
Unforgeable packet delivery confirmations
Flexible and extensible interface system
Reticulum includes a large variety of built-in interface types
Ability to load and utilise custom user- or community-supplied interface types
Easily create your own custom interfaces for communicating over anything
Authentication and virtual network segmentation on all supported interface types
An intuitive and easy-to-use API
Simpler and easier to use than sockets APIs and simpler, but more powerful
Makes building distributed and decentralised applications much simpler
Reliable and efficient...