Draft:Reticulum Network Stack
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Submission declined on 25 October 2025 by Ktkvtsh (talk).
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The Reticulum Network Stack, also known as simply Reticulum or RNS, is an experimental, open-source, cryptography-based, mesh networking protocol stack.[1][2][3]
Reticulum is medium-agnostic and supports direct peer-to-peer links over TCP/IP, serial, Ethernet, and I2P, as well as wirelessly over LoRa and packet radio interfaces.[2][3] It is used to operate an overlay network upon the Internet where Reticulum runs on the application layer to encrypt traffic between nodes. The network stack is also used to create off-grid networks where nodes communicate independently from the Internet.[2][4][5]
Reticulum was created by Mark Qvist in 2021 to address security and resiliency issues in the Internet Protocol.[2][3][5] The reference implementation of Reticulum is written in Python and can be run on any system that supports Python, including single-board computers. It supports a wide range of bandwidths and can operate on data links with throughputs as low as 5 bit/s.[4]
Implementation
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The Reticulum network stack is a message-oriented system that operates on destinations, which can send individual, encrypted packets to each other or establish longer-lived links which serve as encrypted channels between destinations. All data transmitted using Reticulum is encrypted with elliptic-curve cryptography and AES-256 by default.[4]
Destinations in Reticulum are represented by unique 16-byte hexadecimal hashes, such as <13425ec15b621c1d928589718000d814>. Destinations can periodically announce their public key over available network interfaces, which can then be used by other nodes to encrypt messages meant for that destination. Each announce is signed with an Ed25519 signature to verify authenticity. Announces propagate throughout the network, over a default limit of 128 hops.[4][6]
Reticulum supports initiator anonymity, and only a destination address is necessary to send data over packets or links. When a destination accepts a link request packet, it can then derive a symmetric key for the link via ECDH using a per-link X25519 key pair. These per-link keys, along with the public key of the link originator, are then used to verify the link over every intermediate node. Once a link is verified, packets sent over the link are then addressed to the link ID, which allows communication without requiring knowledge of the initiator's destination hash.[4]
Links or packets can optionally have forward secrecy through the use of ratchets on a per-destination basis.[4]
Adoption
[edit]On November 4, 2024, students at Florida Atlantic University devloped RTAK, a plugin for the the Android Team Awareness Kit (ATAK) that adds compatibility with Reticulum over portable, solar-powered, waterproof LoRa radio nodes. The project was able to bridge ATAK over Reticulum with the goal of enabling ATAK to function in situations where cellular or satellite networks are unavailable, such as for rescue operations during natural disasters.[7]
About 200 Reticulum nodes were visible from the public Internet on October 2025, with most clustered in Europe and the United States.[8]
References
[edit]- ^ Qvist, Mark. "What is Reticulum?". Reticulum Network Stack 1.0.0 documentation. Retrieved 24 October 2025.
- ^ a b c d Gault, Matthew; Bode, Karl (31 March 2022). "This Prepper Is Building a Post-Apocalyptic Internet". VICE Media. VICE Digital Publishing. Retrieved 24 October 2025.
- ^ a b c Rice-Jones, Joe (15 October 2025). "I found an off-grid open source VPN, and it's amazing". XDA. Valnet Publishing Group. Retrieved 24 October 2025.
- ^ a b c d e f Qvist, Mark. "Understanding Reticulum". Reticulum Network Stack 1.0.0 documentation. Retrieved 24 October 2025.
- ^ a b Budington, Bill (16 July 2025). "Radio Hobbyists, Rejoice! Good News for LoRa & Mesh". Electronic Frontier Foundation. Retrieved 24 October 2025.
- ^ "Intro To Reticulum". MichMesh. Retrieved 24 October 2025.
- ^ Beswilan, Jason; Garcia, Gabriel; Hecdivert, Christian; Kahn, Jacob; Lorquet, Laurent (4 November 2024). "RTAK: Integrating Android Team Awareness Kit (ATAK) with a LoRa mesh radios to enable off-the-grid data sharing" (PDF). Senior Design Showcase. Florida Atlantic University. Archived from the original on 24 October 2025. Retrieved 24 October 2025.
- ^ "RMAP.WORLD". Reticulum Network World Map Project. Retrieved 24 October 2025.
External links
[edit]- Official website
- Source code on GitHub
- Documentation
- Reticulum Network World Map Project (RMAP)
- LXMF, a messaging protocol built for Reticulum on GitHub
- NomadNet, a terminal-based messaging tool and browser for pages hosted on Reticulum nodes on GitHub
- MeshChat, a desktop communications app for Reticulum on GitHub
- Application layer protocols
- Computer networking
- Cross-platform free software
- Cross-platform software
- Cryptographic_protocols
- Dark web
- Free communication software
- Free software projects
- Mesh networking
- Network layer protocols
- Open source projects
- Overlay networks
- Peer-to-peer computing
- Presentation layer protocols
- Privacy software
- Session layer protocols
- Transport layer protocols
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