[[Default Interface]]

type = AutoInterface

enabled = yes

# Configure global discovery

group_id = custom_network_name

discovery_scope = global

# Other configuration options

discovery_port = 48555

data_port = 49555

The Backbone interface is a very fast and resource efficient interface type, primarily intended for interconnecting Reticulum instances over many different types of mediums. It uses a kernel-event I/O backend, and can handle thousands of interfaces and/or clients with relatively low system resource utilisation. This interface type is currently only supported on Linux and Android.

The Backbone Interface is fully compatible with the TCPServerInterface and TCPClientInterface types, and they can be used interchangably, and cross-connect with each other. On systems that support BackboneInterface, it is generally recommended to use it, unless you need specific options or features that the TCP server and client interfaces provide.

While the goal is to support all socket types and I/O devices provided by the underlying operating system, the initial release only provides support for TCP connections over IPv4 and IPv6.

For all types of connections over a BackboneInterface, Reticulum will gracefully handle intermittency, link loss, and connections that come and go.

The following examples illustrates various ways to set up BackboneInterface listeners.

# This example demonstrates a backbone interface

# that listens for incoming connections on the

# specified IP address and port number.

[[Backbone Listener]]

type = BackboneInterface

enabled = yes

listen_on = 0.0.0.0

port = 4242

# Alternatively you can bind to a specific IP

[[Backbone Listener]]

type = BackboneInterface

enabled = yes

listen_on = 10.0.0.88

port = 4242

# Or a specific network device

[[Backbone Listener]]

type = BackboneInterface

enabled = yes

device = eth0

port = 4242

If you are using the interface on a device which has both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses available, you can use the prefer_ipv6 option to bind to the IPv6 address:

# This example demonstrates a backbone interface

# listening on the IPv6 address of a specified

# kernel networking device.

[[Backbone Listener]]

type = BackboneInterface

enabled = yes

prefer_ipv6 = yes

device = eth0

port = 4242

To use the BackboneInterface over Yggdrasil (https://yggdrasil-network.github.io/), you can simply specify the Yggdrasil tun device and a listening port, like so:

# This example demonstrates a backbone interface

# listening for connections over Yggdrasil.

[[Yggdrasil Backbone Interface]]

type = BackboneInterface

enabled = yes

device = tun0

port = 4343

The following examples illustrates various ways to connect to remote BackboneInterface listeners. As noted above, BackboneInterface interfaces can also connect to remote TCPServerInterface, and as such these interface types can be used interchangably.

# Here's an example of a backbone interface that

# connects to a remote listener.

[[Backbone Remote]]

type = BackboneInterface

enabled = yes

remote = amsterdam.connect.reticulum.network

target_port = 4251

To connect to remotes over Yggdrasil (https://yggdrasil-network.github.io/), simply specify the target Yggdrasil IPv6 address and port, like so:

[[Yggdrasil Remote]]

type = BackboneInterface

enabled = yes

target_host = 201:5d78:af73:5caf:a4de:a79f:3278:71e5

target_port = 4343