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<article role="main" id="furo-main-content">
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<section id="building-networks">
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<span id="networks-main"></span><h1>Building Networks<a class="headerlink" href="#building-networks" title="Link to this heading">¶</a></h1>
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<p>This chapter will provide you with the high-level knowledge needed to build networks with
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Reticulum. It will not, however tell you all you need to know to succesfully
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design and configure every kind of network you can imagine. For this, you will
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most likely need to read this manual in its entirity, invest significant time
|
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into experimenting with the stack, and learning functionality intuitively.</p>
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<p>Still, after reading this chapter, you should be well equipped to <em>start</em> that
|
||
journey. While Reticulum is <strong>fundamentally different</strong> compared to other
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networking technologies, it can often be easier than using traditional stacks.
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If you’ve built networks before, you will probably have to forget, or at least
|
||
temporarily ignore, a lot of things at this point. It will all makes sense in
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||
the end though. Hopefully.</p>
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<p>If you’re used to protocols like IP, let’s at least start with some relief:
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||
You don’t have to worry about coordinating addresses, subnets and routing for an
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||
entire network that you might not know how will evolve in the future. With
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Reticulum, you can simply add more segments to your network when it becomes
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||
necessary, and Reticulum will handle the convergence of the entire network
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||
automatically. There’s plenty more neat aspects like that to Reticulum, but
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||
we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s cover the basics first.</p>
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||
<section id="concepts-overview">
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<h2>Concepts & Overview<a class="headerlink" href="#concepts-overview" title="Link to this heading">¶</a></h2>
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||
<p>Before you start building your own networks, it’s important to understand the
|
||
fundamental principles that distinguish Reticulum networks from traditional
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networking approaches. These principles shape how you design your network,
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||
what trade-offs you encounter, and what capabilities you can rely on.</p>
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||
<p>Reticulum is not a single network you “join”, it is a toolkit for <em>creating</em> networks.
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You decide what mediums to use, how nodes connect, what trust boundaries exist,
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||
and what the network’s purpose is. Reticulum provides the cryptographic foundation,
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||
the transport mechanisms, and the convergence algorithms that make your design
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||
workable. You provide the intent and the structure.</p>
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||
<p>This approach offers tremendous flexibility, but it requires thinking in terms of
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||
different abstractions than those used in conventional networking.</p>
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<section id="introductory-considerations">
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||
<h3>Introductory Considerations<a class="headerlink" href="#introductory-considerations" title="Link to this heading">¶</a></h3>
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||
<p>There are important points that need to be kept in mind when building networks
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with Reticulum:</p>
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||
<blockquote>
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<div><ul>
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<li><div class="line-block">
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||
<div class="line">In a Reticulum network, any node can autonomously generate as many addresses
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||
(called <em>destinations</em> in Reticulum terminology) as it needs, which become
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||
globally reachable to the rest of the network. There is no central point of
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||
control over the address space.</div>
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||
</div>
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||
</li>
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||
<li><div class="line-block">
|
||
<div class="line">Reticulum was designed to handle both very small, and very large networks.
|
||
While the address space can support billions of endpoints, Reticulum is
|
||
also very useful when just a few devices needs to communicate.</div>
|
||
</div>
|
||
</li>
|
||
<li><div class="line-block">
|
||
<div class="line">Low-bandwidth networks, like LoRa and packet radio, can interoperate and
|
||
interconnect with much larger and higher bandwidth networks without issue.
|
||
Reticulum automatically manages the flow of information to and from various
|
||
network segments, and when bandwidth is limited, local traffic is prioritised.
|
||
You will, however, need to configure your interfaces correctly. If you tell
|
||
Reticulum to pass all announce traffic from a gigabit link to a LoRa interfaces,
|
||
it will try as best as possible to comply with this, while still respecting
|
||
bandwidth limits, but you <em>will</em> waste a lot of precious bandwidth and airtime,
|
||
and your LoRa network will not work very well.</div>
|
||
</div>
|
||
</li>
|
||
<li><div class="line-block">
|
||
<div class="line">Reticulum provides sender/initiator anonymity by default. There is no way
|
||
to filter traffic or discriminate it based on the source of the traffic.</div>
|
||
</div>
|
||
</li>
|
||
<li><div class="line-block">
|
||
<div class="line">All traffic is encrypted using ephemeral keys generated by an Elliptic Curve
|
||
Diffie-Hellman key exchange on Curve25519. There is no way to inspect traffic
|
||
contents, and no way to prioritise or throttle certain kinds of traffic.
|
||
All transport and routing layers are thus completely agnostic to traffic type,
|
||
and will pass all traffic equally.</div>
|
||
</div>
|
||
</li>
|
||
<li><div class="line-block">
|
||
<div class="line">Reticulum can function both with and without infrastructure. When <em>transport
|
||
nodes</em> are available, they can route traffic over multiple hops for other
|
||
nodes, and will function as a distributed cryptographic keystore. When there
|
||
is no transport nodes available, all nodes that are within communication range
|
||
can still communicate.</div>
|
||
</div>
|
||
</li>
|
||
<li><div class="line-block">
|
||
<div class="line">Every node can become a transport node, simply by enabling it in it’s
|
||
configuration, but there is no need for every node on the network to be a
|
||
transport node. Letting every node be a transport node will in most cases
|
||
degrade the performance and reliability of the network.</div>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<blockquote>
|
||
<div><p><em>In general terms, if a node is stationary, well-connected and kept running
|
||
most of the time, it is a good candidate to be a transport node. For optimal
|
||
performance, a network should contain the amount of transport nodes that
|
||
provides connectivity to the intended area / topography, and not many more
|
||
than that.</em></p>
|
||
</div></blockquote>
|
||
</li>
|
||
<li><div class="line-block">
|
||
<div class="line">Reticulum is designed to work reliably in open, trustless environments. This
|
||
means you can use it to create open-access networks, where participants can
|
||
join and leave in a free and unorganised manner. This property allows an
|
||
entirely new, and so far, mostly unexplored class of networked applications,
|
||
where networks, and the information flow within them can form and dissolve
|
||
organically.</div>
|
||
</div>
|
||
</li>
|
||
<li><div class="line-block">
|
||
<div class="line">You can just as easily create closed networks, since Reticulum allows you to
|
||
add authentication to any interface. This means you can restrict access on
|
||
any interface type, even when using legacy devices, such as modems. You can
|
||
also mix authenticated and open interfaces on the same system. See the
|
||
<a class="reference internal" href="interfaces.html#interfaces-options"><span class="std std-ref">Common Interface Options</span></a> section of the <a class="reference internal" href="interfaces.html#interfaces-main"><span class="std std-ref">Interfaces</span></a>
|
||
chapter of this manual for information on how to set up interface authentication.</div>
|
||
</div>
|
||
</li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
</div></blockquote>
|
||
<p>Reticulum allows you to mix very different kinds of networking mediums into a
|
||
unified mesh, or to keep everything within one medium. You could build a “virtual
|
||
network” running entirely over the Internet, where all nodes communicate over TCP
|
||
and UDP “channels”. You could also build such a network using other already-established
|
||
communications channels as the underlying carrier for Reticulum.</p>
|
||
<p>However, most real-world networks will probably involve either some form of
|
||
wireless or direct hardline communications. To allow Reticulum to communicate
|
||
over any type of medium, you must specify it in the configuration file, by default
|
||
located at <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">~/.reticulum/config</span></code>. See the <a class="reference internal" href="interfaces.html#interfaces-main"><span class="std std-ref">Supported Interfaces</span></a>
|
||
chapter of this manual for interface configuration examples.</p>
|
||
<p>Any number of interfaces can be configured, and Reticulum will automatically
|
||
decide which are suitable to use in any given situation, depending on where
|
||
traffic needs to flow.</p>
|
||
</section>
|
||
<section id="destinations-not-addresses">
|
||
<h3>Destinations, Not Addresses<a class="headerlink" href="#destinations-not-addresses" title="Link to this heading">¶</a></h3>
|
||
<p>In traditional networking, addresses are allocated from a managed space. If you want to
|
||
communicate with another node, you need to know its address, and that address
|
||
must be unique within the network segment. This requires coordination, either
|
||
through manual assignment, DHCP servers, or other allocation mechanisms.</p>
|
||
<p>Reticulum replaces addresses with <strong>destinations</strong>. A destination is identified by a 16-byte
|
||
hash (128 bits) derived from a SHA-256 hash of the destination’s identifying
|
||
characteristics. This hash serves as the address on the network. On the network, it
|
||
is represented in binary, but when displayed to human users, it will usually look something like
|
||
this <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre"><13425ec15b621c1d928589718000d814></span></code>.</p>
|
||
<p>The critical difference is that <em>any node can generate as many destinations as it
|
||
needs, without coordination</em>. A destination’s uniqueness is guaranteed by the
|
||
collision resistance of SHA-256 and the inclusion of the node’s public key in the
|
||
hash calculation. Two nodes can both use the destination name
|
||
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">messenger.user.inbox</span></code>, but they will have different destination hashes because
|
||
their public keys differ. Both can coexist on the same network without conflict.</p>
|
||
<p>This has profound implications for network design:</p>
|
||
<ul class="simple">
|
||
<li><p><strong>No address allocation planning:</strong> You never need to reserve address ranges,
|
||
plan subnets, or coordinate with other network operators. Nodes simply generate
|
||
destinations and announce them.</p></li>
|
||
<li><p><strong>Global portability:</strong> A destination is not tied to a physical location or
|
||
network segment. A node can move its destinations across interfaces, mediums,
|
||
or even between entirely separate Reticulum networks simply by sending an
|
||
announce on the new medium.</p></li>
|
||
<li><p><strong>Implicit authentication:</strong> Because destinations are bound to public keys,
|
||
communication to a destination is inherently cryptographically authenticated.
|
||
Only the holder of the corresponding private key can decrypt and respond to
|
||
traffic addressed to that destination. This also makes application-level
|
||
authentication <em>much</em> simpler, since it can directly use the foundational
|
||
identity verification built into the core networking layer.</p></li>
|
||
<li><p><strong>Identity abstraction:</strong> A single Reticulum Identity can create multiple
|
||
destinations. This allows a single entity (a person, a device, a service) to
|
||
present multiple endpoints without needing multiple cryptographic keypairs.</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
</section>
|
||
<section id="transport-nodes-and-instances">
|
||
<h3>Transport Nodes and Instances<a class="headerlink" href="#transport-nodes-and-instances" title="Link to this heading">¶</a></h3>
|
||
<p>Reticulum distinguishes between two types of nodes: <strong>Instances</strong>
|
||
and <strong>Transport Nodes</strong>. Every node running Reticulum is an Instance, but not
|
||
every Instance is a Transport Node.</p>
|
||
<p>A <strong>Reticulum Instance</strong> is any system running the Reticulum stack. It can create
|
||
destinations, send and receive packets, establish links, and communicate with
|
||
other nodes. It can also host destinations that are connectable for <em>anyone</em> else
|
||
in the network. This means you can easily host globally available services from
|
||
any location, including your home or office. Network-wide, global connectivity
|
||
for all destinations is guaranteed, as long as there is <em>some</em> physical way to
|
||
actually transport the packets. Instances are the default state and are appropriate for most end-user devices,
|
||
such as phones, laptops, sensors, or any device that primarily consumes network services.</p>
|
||
<p>A <strong>Transport Node</strong> is an Instance that has been explicitly configured to
|
||
participate in network-wide transport. Transport nodes forward packets across
|
||
hops, propagate announces, maintain path tables, and serve path requests on
|
||
behalf of other nodes. When a destination sends an announce, Transport Nodes
|
||
receive it, remember the path, and rebroadcast it to other interfaces. When a node
|
||
needs to reach a destination it doesn’t have a path for, Transport Nodes help
|
||
resolve the path through the network.</p>
|
||
<p>Even devices hosting services or serving content should probably just be configured
|
||
as instances, and themselves connect to wider networks via a Transport Node.
|
||
In some situations, this may not be practical though, and as an example, it is
|
||
entirely viable to host a personal Transport Node on a Raspberry Pi, while it
|
||
is at the same time running an LXMF propagation node, and hosting your personal
|
||
site or files over Reticulum.</p>
|
||
<p>The distinction is important. <strong>Not</strong> every node should be a Transport Node:</p>
|
||
<ul class="simple">
|
||
<li><p><strong>Resource consumption:</strong> Transport nodes maintain path tables, process
|
||
announces, and forward traffic. This requires memory and CPU resources that
|
||
may be limited on low-powered devices.</p></li>
|
||
<li><p><strong>Stability requirements:</strong> Transport nodes contribute to network convergence.
|
||
If Transport Nodes frequently go offline, path tables become stale and
|
||
convergence suffers. Stable, always-on nodes make better Transport Nodes.</p></li>
|
||
<li><p><strong>Bandwidth considerations:</strong> Transport nodes process and rebroadcast network
|
||
maintenance traffic. On very low-bandwidth mediums, having too many Transport
|
||
Nodes will consume capacity that should be used for actual data.</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<p>In practice, a network typically has a relatively small number of Transport Nodes
|
||
strategically placed to provide coverage and connectivity. End-user devices run
|
||
as Instances, connecting through nearby Transport Nodes to reach the wider network.
|
||
This pattern mirrors traditional networking where routers forward traffic while
|
||
end hosts simply consume connectivity, but with the crucial difference that any
|
||
node <em>can</em> become a router if needed, and the decision is yours to make based on
|
||
your network’s requirements.</p>
|
||
<p>Transport nodes also function as distributed cryptographic keystores. When a
|
||
destination announces itself, Transport Nodes cache the public key and destination
|
||
information. Other nodes can request unknown public keys from the network, and
|
||
Transport Nodes respond with the cached information. This eliminates the need for
|
||
a central directory service while ensuring that public keys remain available
|
||
throughout the network.</p>
|
||
</section>
|
||
<section id="trustless-networking">
|
||
<h3>Trustless Networking<a class="headerlink" href="#trustless-networking" title="Link to this heading">¶</a></h3>
|
||
<p>Traditional network security models assume high levels of trust at
|
||
specific layers. You might trust your ISP to deliver packets without inspection,
|
||
or trust your VPN provider to handle your traffic, or trust the network
|
||
administrator to configure firewalls appropriately. These trust relationships
|
||
create vulnerabilities and dependencies.</p>
|
||
<p>Reticulum is designed to function in <strong>open, trustless environments</strong>. This
|
||
means the protocol makes no assumptions about the trustworthiness of the network
|
||
infrastructure, the other participants, or the transport mediums. Every aspect
|
||
of communication is secured cryptographically:</p>
|
||
<ul class="simple">
|
||
<li><p><strong>Traffic encryption:</strong> All traffic to single destinations is encrypted using
|
||
ephemeral keys.</p></li>
|
||
<li><p><strong>Source anonymity:</strong> Reticulum packets do not include source addresses.
|
||
An observer intercepting a packet cannot determine who sent it, only who it is
|
||
addressed to (unless IFAC is enabled, in which case nothing can be determined).
|
||
This provides initiator anonymity by default.</p></li>
|
||
<li><p><strong>Path verification:</strong> The announce mechanism includes cryptographic signatures that
|
||
prove the authenticity of destination announcements.</p></li>
|
||
<li><p><strong>Unforgeable delivery confirmations:</strong> When a destination proves receipt of a
|
||
packet, the proof is signed with the destination’s identity key. This prevents
|
||
false acknowledgments and ensures reliable delivery verification.</p></li>
|
||
<li><p><strong>Interface authentication:</strong> When using Interface Access Codes (IFAC), packets
|
||
on authenticated interfaces carry signatures derived from a shared secret. Only
|
||
nodes with the correct network name and passphrase can generate valid packets, allowing creation
|
||
of virtual private networks on shared mediums.</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<p>The trustless design has important consequences for network design:</p>
|
||
<ul class="simple">
|
||
<li><p><strong>Open-access networks are viable:</strong> You can build networks that anyone can
|
||
join without pre-approval. Because traffic is encrypted and authenticated end-
|
||
to-end, participants cannot interfere with each other’s private communication,
|
||
even if they share the same transport infrastructure.</p></li>
|
||
<li><p><strong>No traffic inspection or prioritization:</strong> Because traffic contents and
|
||
sources are opaque to intermediate nodes, there is no mechanism for filtering,
|
||
prioritizing, or throttling traffic based on its type or origin. All traffic
|
||
is treated equally. From a neutrality perspective, this is a feature.</p></li>
|
||
<li><p><strong>Adversarial resilience:</strong> The network can operate even if some nodes are
|
||
malicious or controlled by adversaries. While a malicious Transport Node could
|
||
refuse to forward certain traffic or drop packets, it cannot decrypt, modify,
|
||
or impersonate legitimate traffic. Redundant paths and multiple Transport Nodes
|
||
mitigate the impact of malicious nodes.</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<p>Of course, you can also create closed networks. Interface Access
|
||
Codes allow you to restrict participation on specific interfaces. Network
|
||
Identities enable you to verify that discovered interfaces belong to trusted
|
||
operators. Blackhole management lets you block malicious identities. Reticulum
|
||
provides both the tools for open networks and the controls for closed ones. The
|
||
choice is yours based on your requirements.</p>
|
||
</section>
|
||
<section id="heterogeneous-connectivity">
|
||
<h3>Heterogeneous Connectivity<a class="headerlink" href="#heterogeneous-connectivity" title="Link to this heading">¶</a></h3>
|
||
<p>In conventional networking, mixing different transport mediums typically requires
|
||
gateways, translation layers, and careful configuration. A WiFi network doesn’t
|
||
natively interoperate with a packet radio network without additional infrastructure,
|
||
and you can’t just download a car over a serial port, or send an encrypted message
|
||
in a QR code.</p>
|
||
<p>Reticulum treats <strong>heterogeneity as a core premise</strong>. The protocol is designed
|
||
to seamlessly mix mediums with vastly different characteristics:</p>
|
||
<ul class="simple">
|
||
<li><p><strong>Bandwidth:</strong> LoRa links operating at a few hundred bits per second can
|
||
interconnect with gigabit Ethernet backbones. Reticulum automatically manages
|
||
the flow of information, prioritizing local traffic on slow segments while
|
||
allowing global convergence.</p></li>
|
||
<li><p><strong>Latency:</strong> Satellite links with multi-second latency can coexist with local
|
||
links measured in milliseconds. The transport system handles timing, asynchronous
|
||
delivery and retransmissions transparently.</p></li>
|
||
<li><p><strong>Topology:</strong> Point-to-point microwave links, broadcast radio networks,
|
||
switched Ethernet fabrics, and virtual tunnels over the Internet can all be
|
||
part of the same Reticulum network.</p></li>
|
||
<li><p><strong>Reliability:</strong> Intermittent connections that come and go (such as mobile
|
||
devices or opportunistic radio contacts) can participate alongside always-on
|
||
infrastructure. Reticulum gracefully handles link loss and reconnection.</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<p>This heterogeneity is achieved through several design elements:</p>
|
||
<ul class="simple">
|
||
<li><p><strong>Expandable, medium-agnostic interface system:</strong> Reticulum communicates with the physical
|
||
world through interface modules. Adding support for a new medium is a matter
|
||
of implementing an interface class. The protocol itself remains unchanged.</p></li>
|
||
<li><p><strong>Interface modes:</strong> Different modes (<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">full</span></code>, <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">gateway</span></code>, <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">access_point</span></code>,
|
||
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">roaming</span></code>, <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">boundary</span></code>) allow you to configure how interfaces interact with
|
||
the wider network based on their characteristics and role.</p></li>
|
||
<li><p><strong>Announce propagation rules:</strong> Announces are forwarded between interfaces
|
||
according to rules that account for bandwidth limitations and interface modes.
|
||
Slow segments are not overwhelmed by traffic from fast segments.</p></li>
|
||
<li><p><strong>Local traffic prioritization:</strong> When bandwidth is constrained, Reticulum
|
||
prioritizes announces for nearby destinations. This ensures that local
|
||
connectivity remains functional even when global convergence is incomplete.</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<p>For network designers, this means you are free to use whatever mediums are
|
||
available, affordable, or appropriate for your situation. You might use LoRa for
|
||
wide-area low-bandwidth coverage, WiFi for local high-capacity links, I2P for
|
||
anonymous Internet connectivity, and Ethernet for infrastructure backhauls, all
|
||
within the same network. Reticulum handles the translation and coordination
|
||
automatically.</p>
|
||
<p>The key design consideration is not whether different mediums can work together
|
||
(they can), but <strong>how</strong> they should work together based on your goals. A node
|
||
with multiple interfaces spanning heterogeneous mediums needs to be configured
|
||
with appropriate interface modes so that traffic flows efficiently. A gateway
|
||
connecting a slow LoRa segment to a fast Internet backbone should be configured
|
||
differently than a mobile device roaming between radio cells.</p>
|
||
</section>
|
||
</section>
|
||
</section>
|
||
|
||
</article>
|
||
</div>
|
||
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Copyright © 2025, Mark Qvist
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On this page
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<div class="toc-tree-container">
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<div class="toc-tree">
|
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<ul>
|
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<li><a class="reference internal" href="#">Building Networks</a><ul>
|
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<li><a class="reference internal" href="#concepts-overview">Concepts & Overview</a><ul>
|
||
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#introductory-considerations">Introductory Considerations</a></li>
|
||
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#destinations-not-addresses">Destinations, Not Addresses</a></li>
|
||
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#transport-nodes-and-instances">Transport Nodes and Instances</a></li>
|
||
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#trustless-networking">Trustless Networking</a></li>
|
||
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#heterogeneous-connectivity">Heterogeneous Connectivity</a></li>
|
||
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|
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