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

You can easily add rnsd as an always-on service by configuring a service.

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

Improving System Configuration

If you are setting up a system for permanent use with Reticulum, there is a few system configuration changes that can make this easier to administrate. These changes will be detailed here.

Fixed Serial Port Names

On a Reticulum node with several serial port based interfaces, it can be beneficial to use the fixed name device nodes for the serial ports, instead of the dynamically allocated shorthands such as /dev/ttyUSB0. Under most Debian-based distributions, including Ubuntu and Raspberry Pi OS, these nodes can be found under /dev/serial/by-id.

You can use such a device path directly in place of the numbered shorthands. Here is an example of a packet radio TNC configured as such:

[[Packet Radio KISS Interface]]
  type = KISSInterface
  interface_enabled = True
  outgoing = true
  port = /dev/serial/by-id/usb-FTDI_FT230X_Basic_UART_43891CKM-if00-port0
  speed = 115200
  databits = 8
  parity = none
  stopbits = 1
  preamble = 150
  txtail = 10
  persistence = 200
  slottime = 20

Using this methodology avoids potential naming mix-ups where physical devices might be plugged and unplugged in different orders, or when node name assignment varies from one boot to another.

Reticulum as a System Service

Instead of starting Reticulum manually, you can install rnsd as a system service and have it start automatically at boot.

If you installed Reticulum with pip, the rnsd program will most likely be located in a user-local installation path only, which means systemd will not be able to execute it. In this case, you can simply symlink the rnsd program into a directory that is in systemd’s path:

sudo ln -s $(which rnsd) /usr/local/bin/

You can then create the service file /etc/systemd/system/rnsd.service with the following content:

[Unit]
Description=Reticulum Network Stack Daemon
After=multi-user.target

[Service]
# If you run Reticulum on WiFi devices,
# or other devices that need some extra
# time to initialise, you might want to
# add a short delay before Reticulum is
# started by systemd:
# ExecStartPre=/bin/sleep 10
Type=simple
Restart=always
RestartSec=3
User=USERNAMEHERE
ExecStart=rnsd --service

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Be sure to replace USERNAMEHERE with the user you want to run rnsd as.

To manually start rnsd run:

sudo systemctl start rnsd

If you want to automatically start rnsd at boot, run:

sudo systemctl enable rnsd