Reticulum

Type: Foundational Technology Role in Styrene: Transport layer for all fleet communication

Reticulum is a cryptography-based networking stack for building local and wide-area networks with readily available hardware. It provides end-to-end encryption and identity-based routing without depending on centralized infrastructure.

Why Styrene Uses Reticulum

Traditional fleet management relies on:

  • SSH over TCP/IP — requires stable IP addresses, DNS, and often VPNs
  • Central servers — single points of failure, internet dependency
  • PKI infrastructure — certificate management complexity

Reticulum provides:

  • Identity-based addressing — 128-bit hashes derived from Ed25519 keys
  • Transport agnosticism — works over TCP, UDP, serial, LoRa, pipe, anything
  • Automatic encryption — every link is encrypted, no configuration needed
  • Store-and-forward — messages propagate even with intermittent connectivity

Key Concepts

Destinations

A destination is a cryptographic identity (Ed25519 keypair). Instead of 192.168.1.50:22, you address <128-bit hash>. The network routes to wherever that identity currently is.

Transports

Reticulum doesn’t care how packets move:

  • Local: Shared memory, pipes
  • LAN: UDP broadcast, TCP
  • Internet: TCP to public Transport nodes
  • Mesh: LoRa, packet radio, WiFi
  • Hybrid: All of the above simultaneously
  • Packet mode: Fire-and-forget, up to ~500 bytes
  • Link mode: Bidirectional channel with session keys, larger transfers

Styrene Integration

ComponentReticulum Usage
styrenedIdentity management, RNS lifecycle, fleet RPC
styrenedAnnounces identity, handles incoming links
styrened.tuiDiscovers fleet via announcements, initiates links
Fleet communicationAll RPC over LXMF (which runs on Reticulum)

Layer Position

┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Styrene RPC (msgpack messages)      │  ← Application
├─────────────────────────────────────┤
│  LXMF (message format + routing)    │  ← Messaging
├─────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Reticulum (identity + encryption)  │  ← Transport ← YOU ARE HERE
├─────────────────────────────────────┤
│  BATMAN-adv / TCP / UDP / LoRa      │  ← Physical
└─────────────────────────────────────┘

Resources

  • LXMF — Message format built on Reticulum
  • NomadNet — Text-based communication platform using Reticulum
  • LoRa — Low-power radio transport for Reticulum

Graph

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