Using Reticulum on Your System¶
Reticulum is not installed as a driver or kernel module, as one might expect of a networking stack. Instead, Reticulum is distributed as a Python module. This means that no special privileges are required to install or use it. Any program or application that uses Reticulum will automatically load and initialise Reticulum when it starts.
In many cases, this approach is sufficient. When any program needs to use Reticulum, it is loaded, initialised, interfaces are brought up, and the program can now communicate over Reticulum. If another program starts up and also wants access to the same Reticulum network, the instance is simply shared. This works for any number of programs running concurrently, and is very easy to use, but depending on your use case, there are other options.
Included Utility Programs¶
If you often use Reticulum from several different programs, or simply want Reticulum to stay available all the time, for example if you are hosting a transport node, you might want to run Reticulum as a separate service that other programs, applications and services can utilise.
The rnsd Utility¶
To do so is very easy. Simply run the included rnsd
command. When rnsd
is running, it will keep all configured interfaces open, handle transport if
it is enabled, and allow any other programs to immediately utilise the
Reticulum network it is configured for.
You can even run multiple instances of rnsd with different configurations on the same system.
# Install Reticulum
pip3 install rns
# Run rnsd
rnsd
usage: rnsd [-h] [--config CONFIG] [-v] [-q] [--version]
Reticulum Network Stack Daemon
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--config CONFIG path to alternative Reticulum config directory
-v, --verbose
-q, --quiet
--version show program's version number and exit
The rnstatus Utility¶
Using the rnstatus
utility, you can view the status of configured Reticulum
interfaces, similar to the ifconfig
program.
# Run rnstatus
rnstatus
# Example output
Shared Instance[37428]
Status: Up
Connected applications: 1
RX: 1.13 KB
TX: 1.07 KB
UDPInterface[Default UDP Interface/0.0.0.0:4242]
Status: Up
RX: 1.01 KB
TX: 1.01 KB
TCPInterface[RNS Testnet Frankfurt/frankfurt.rns.unsigned.io:4965]
Status: Up
RX: 1.37 KB
TX: 9.02 KB
usage: rnsd [-h] [--config CONFIG] [-v] [-q] [--version]
Reticulum Network Stack Daemon
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--config CONFIG path to alternative Reticulum config directory
-v, --verbose
-q, --quiet
--version show program's version number and exit
The rnpath Utility¶
With the rnpath
utility, you can look up and view paths for
destinations on the Reticulum network.
# Run rnpath
rnpath eca6f4e4dc26ae329e61
# Example output
Path found, destination <eca6f4e4dc26ae329e61> is 4 hops away via <56b115c30cd386cad69c> on TCPInterface[Testnet/frankfurt.rns.unsigned.io:4965]
usage: rnpath.py [-h] [--config CONFIG] [--version] [-v] [destination]
Reticulum Path Discovery Utility
positional arguments:
destination hexadecimal hash of the destination
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--config CONFIG path to alternative Reticulum config directory
--version show program's version number and exit
-v, --verbose
The rnprobe Utility¶
The rnprobe
utility lets you probe a destination for connectivity, similar
to the ping
program. Please note that probes will only be answered if the
specified destination is configured to send proofs for received packets. Many
destinations will not have this option enabled, and will not be probable.
# Run rnprobe
python3 -m RNS.Utilities.rnprobe example_utilities.echo.request 9382f334de63217a4278
# Example output
Sent 16 byte probe to <9382f334de63217a4278>
Valid reply received from <9382f334de63217a4278>
Round-trip time is 38.469 milliseconds over 2 hops
usage: rnprobe.py [-h] [--config CONFIG] [--version] [-v] [full_name] [destination_hash]
Reticulum Probe Utility
positional arguments:
full_name full destination name in dotted notation
destination_hash hexadecimal hash of the destination
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--config CONFIG path to alternative Reticulum config directory
--version show program's version number and exit
-v, --verbose