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Manual: Transport Nodes and Instances ↗

A transport node is an instance that also routes data across its interfaces.

Transport nodes forward packets across hops, propagate announces, maintain path tables, serve path requests on behalf of other nodes and function as distributed cryptographic keystores.cite-ref-0-1-0[1]

While every node can become a transport node, it is not recommended. In most cases, it will degrade the performance and reliability of the network.cite-ref-0-1-1[1]

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.

A network will typically have a relatively small number of transport nodes in strategic positions, providing coverage and connectivity. End-user devices will typically be instances connected to the wider network through a nearby transport node.

Reticulum does work without any transport nodes, but only nodes that are in direct contact or within communication range will be able to communicate.

Note: Transport nodes are not the same as LXMF's propagation nodes; transport nodes enable multi-hop routing at the Reticulum Protocol level while propagation nodes provide optional asynchronous messaging features to LXMF.

Contents

• Cryptographic keystores

• Usage

• See also

• References

Cryptographic keystores

When a destination announces itself, transport nodes will cache the public key of the destination's associated identity. If a node doesn't have the public key for a destination, it can request it from the network, and any transport node that has it will respond with the cached information. This ensures that public keys remain available throughout the network without the need for a central directory service.cite-ref-0-1-2[1]

Usage

In RNS, set enable_transport = true in the configuration file.