whatis.rst
1 ****************** 2 What is Reticulum? 3 ****************** 4 5 Reticulum is a cryptography-based networking stack for building both local and 6 wide-area networks with readily available hardware, that can continue to operate 7 under adverse conditions, such as extremely low bandwidth and very high latency. 8 9 To understand the foundational philosophy and goals of this system, read the 10 :ref:`Zen of Reticulum <zen>`. 11 12 Reticulum allows you to build wide-area networks with off-the-shelf tools, and 13 offers end-to-end encryption, forward secrecy, autoconfiguring cryptographically 14 backed multi-hop transport, efficient addressing, unforgeable packet 15 acknowledgements and more. 16 17 From a users perspective, Reticulum allows the creation of applications that 18 respect and empower the autonomy and sovereignty of communities and individuals. 19 Reticulum enables secure digital communication that cannot be subjected to 20 outside control, manipulation or censorship. 21 22 Reticulum enables the construction of both small and potentially planetary-scale 23 networks, without any need for hierarchical or bureaucratic structures to control 24 or manage them, while ensuring individuals and communities full sovereignty 25 over their own network segments. 26 27 Reticulum is a **complete networking stack**, and does not need IP or higher 28 layers, although it is easy to utilise IP (with TCP or UDP) as the underlying 29 carrier for Reticulum. It is therefore trivial to tunnel Reticulum over the 30 Internet or private IP networks. Reticulum is built directly on cryptographic 31 principles, allowing resilience and stable functionality in open and trustless 32 networks. 33 34 No kernel modules or drivers are required. Reticulum can run completely in 35 userland, and will run on practically any system that runs Python 3. Reticulum 36 runs well even on small single-board computers like the Pi Zero. 37 38 39 Current Status 40 ============== 41 All core protocol features are implemented and functioning, but additions will probably occur as 42 real-world use is explored. The API and wire-format can be considered complete and stable, but 43 could change if absolutely warranted. 44 45 46 Reference Implementation 47 ======================== 48 The Python code, for which this documentation is written, and known as the Reticulum Network Stack, 49 is the Reference Implementation of Reticulum. The Reticulum Protocol is defined entirely 50 and authoritatively by this reference implementation, and this manual. It is maintained by Mark Qvist, 51 identified by the Reticulum Identity ``<bc7291552be7a58f361522990465165c>``. 52 53 Compatibility with the Reticulum Protocol is defined as having full interoperability, 54 and sufficient functional parity with this reference implementation. Any specific protocol 55 implementation that achieves this is Reticulum. Any that does not is not Reticulum. 56 57 The reference implementation is licensed under the :ref:`Reticulum License <license>`. 58 59 The Reticulum Protocol was dedicated to the Public Domain in 2016. 60 61 62 What does Reticulum Offer? 63 ========================== 64 65 * Coordination-less globally unique addressing and identification 66 67 * Fully self-configuring multi-hop routing over heterogeneous carriers 68 69 * Flexible scalability over heterogeneous topologies 70 71 * Reticulum can carry data over any mixture of physical mediums and topologies 72 73 * Low-bandwidth networks can co-exist and interoperate with large, high-bandwidth networks 74 75 * Initiator anonymity, communicate without revealing your identity 76 77 * Reticulum does not include source addresses on any packets 78 79 * Asymmetric X25519 encryption and Ed25519 signatures as a basis for all communication 80 81 * The foundational Reticulum Identity Keys are 512-bit Elliptic Curve keysets 82 83 * Forward Secrecy is available for all communication types, both for single packets and over links 84 85 * Reticulum uses the following format for encrypted tokens: 86 87 * Ephemeral per-packet and link keys and derived from an ECDH key exchange on Curve25519 88 89 * AES-256 in CBC mode with PKCS7 padding 90 91 * HMAC using SHA256 for authentication 92 93 * IVs are generated through os.urandom() 94 95 * Unforgeable packet delivery confirmations 96 97 * Flexible and extensible interface system 98 99 * Reticulum includes a large variety of built-in interface types 100 101 * Ability to load and utilise custom user- or community-supplied interface types 102 103 * Easily create your own custom interfaces for communicating over anything 104 105 * Authentication and virtual network segmentation on all supported interface types 106 107 * An intuitive and easy-to-use API 108 109 * Simpler and easier to use than sockets APIs and simpler, but more powerful 110 111 * Makes building distributed and decentralised applications much simpler 112 113 * Reliable and efficient transfer of arbitrary amounts of data 114 115 * Reticulum can handle a few bytes of data or files of many gigabytes 116 117 * Sequencing, compression, transfer coordination and checksumming are automatic 118 119 * The API is very easy to use, and provides transfer progress 120 121 * Lightweight, flexible and expandable Request/Response mechanism 122 123 * Efficient link establishment 124 125 * Total cost of setting up an encrypted and verified link is only 3 packets, totalling 297 bytes 126 127 * Low cost of keeping links open at only 0.44 bits per second 128 129 * Reliable sequential delivery with Channel and Buffer mechanisms 130 131 132 Where can Reticulum be Used? 133 ============================ 134 Over practically any medium that can support at least a half-duplex channel 135 with greater throughput than 5 bits per second, and an MTU of 500 bytes. Data radios, 136 modems, LoRa radios, serial lines, AX.25 TNCs, amateur radio digital modes, 137 ad-hoc WiFi, free-space optical links and similar systems are all examples 138 of the types of interfaces Reticulum was designed for. 139 140 An open-source LoRa-based interface called `RNode <https://unsigned.io/rnode>`_ 141 has been designed as an example transceiver that is very suitable for 142 Reticulum. It is possible to build it yourself, to transform a common LoRa 143 development board into one, or it can be purchased as a complete transceiver 144 from various vendors. 145 146 Reticulum can also be encapsulated over existing IP networks, so there's 147 nothing stopping you from using it over wired Ethernet or your local WiFi 148 network, where it'll work just as well. In fact, one of the strengths of 149 Reticulum is how easily it allows you to connect different mediums into a 150 self-configuring, resilient and encrypted mesh. 151 152 As an example, it's possible to set up a Raspberry Pi connected to both a 153 LoRa radio, a packet radio TNC and a WiFi network. Once the interfaces are 154 added, Reticulum will take care of the rest, and any device on the WiFi 155 network can communicate with nodes on the LoRa and packet radio sides of the 156 network, and vice versa. 157 158 Interface Types and Devices 159 =========================== 160 Reticulum implements a range of generalised interface types that covers the communications hardware that Reticulum can run over. If your hardware is not supported, it's simple to :ref:`implement an interface class<example-custominterface>`. Currently, Reticulum can use the following devices and communication mediums: 161 162 * Any Ethernet device 163 164 * WiFi devices 165 166 * Wired Ethernet devices 167 168 * Fibre-optic transceivers 169 170 * Data radios with Ethernet ports 171 172 * LoRa using `RNode <https://unsigned.io/rnode>`_ 173 174 * Can be installed on `many popular LoRa boards <https://github.com/markqvist/rnodeconfigutil#supported-devices>`_ 175 176 * Can be purchased as a `ready to use transceiver <https://unsigned.io/rnode>`_ 177 178 * Packet Radio TNCs, such as `OpenModem <https://unsigned.io/openmodem>`_ 179 180 * Any packet radio TNC in KISS mode 181 182 * Ideal for VHF and UHF radio 183 184 * Any device with a serial port 185 186 * The I2P network 187 188 * TCP over IP networks 189 190 * UDP over IP networks 191 192 * Anything you can connect via stdio 193 194 * Reticulum can use external programs and pipes as interfaces 195 196 * This can be used to easily hack in virtual interfaces 197 198 * Or to quickly create interfaces with custom hardware 199 200 * Anything else using :ref:`custom interface modules<interfaces-custom>` written in Python 201 202 For a full list and more details, see the :ref:`Supported Interfaces<interfaces-main>` chapter. 203