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Johnathan Corgan 6a564e26ac Prepare the v0.5.0 release content

Everything the release needs except the version number, which stays at
0.5.0-dev until the tag.

The changelog entry covers only the work that is new on this line. The
point release's forty-six entries arrived under their own heading with the
forward merge and are left alone; the twenty that remained are regrouped by
topic and eight more added for changes no entry covered. Three of those
eight matter to someone upgrading. Five root modules and four re-exports
left the public library surface and Node::connections narrowed, none of it
recorded anywhere; the entry names what to use instead and distinguishes
the removed connection-phase enum from the Noise type of the same name,
which is a different type that still exists. Tracing targets moved, so an
existing RUST_LOG filter stops matching rather than erroring. And the
handshake resend interval key no longer governs the first resend, which is
now a constant, though it still governs later ones.

Seven more entries cover the work that landed after the first content pass
was written: the experimental native datagram API, the fipsctl probe
diagnostic, per-instance transport addressing, the app-owned UDP socket
seam, and the connect, disconnect and path-MTU fixes. The four bug fixes
among them all reach the deployed line, so the release notes no longer
claim this release carries exactly one fix for a shipped bug; it carries
four.

There is no security section, because after the split every security entry
belongs to the point release. The release notes say so plainly rather than
leaving a reader upgrading across both releases to conclude this one
carries no security work.

The notes are organized by audience, since the release spans OpenWrt
routers, embedders, FreeBSD, and the existing platforms, and a single list
serves none of them. The native datagram API is given a section of its own
rather than folded into the embedding seam: it is a client-facing API
rather than a way to host a node, and its one rule with no Berkeley-socket
counterpart, that the v1 wire carries no half-close, needs to be somewhere
a client author will read it. FreeBSD is advertised as supported on x86_64
only, stated wherever the platform appears. Android is advertised as an
embedding seam and not as a supported platform: a compile-gated library
surface with no artifact and no host application guide.

The configuration table rename is carried through every shipped file that
taught the old spelling: nine documentation files, the OpenWrt sample
config and a test generator, twenty-two sites in all. Guides written this
same cycle were among them, which is how the omission was found. The
documentation that arrived with the native API was checked for the same
omission and was already clean. The compatibility tests keep the old
spelling deliberately, since they exist to test the fold.

The changelog section is the fold of master's [Unreleased], not a snapshot
of it. An earlier version of this commit took a copy that then drifted, so
each section ended up holding a bullet the other did not and re-folding
them would have picked a winner silently. Both causes were fixed on master
instead — the NixOS module had never been recorded there, and the
pre-release batch of fixes was new — so [Unreleased] is a strict superset
and this is a copy rather than a merge. [0.5.0] carries all forty-six
bullets byte for byte, [Unreleased] is empty, and [0.4.2] is untouched,
checked by hashing it against master's copy.

The BLE work landed after the content pass and gets one summary entry in
the changelog and one section in the release notes rather than nine
bullets: the ble_available gate replacing target_os = "linux",
packet-boundary recovery for stream-oriented backends, peer recognition by
node identity instead of a rotating link address, the L2CAP PSM moving
into the backend seam and onto the advertisement, the embedder-supplied
Android radio, bounded probe retry, and inbound handshakes moved off the
accept loop.

The two release-notes copies no longer share their link paths. Relative
links resolve from one directory only, so the seven written for
docs/releases/ all 404ed from the root copy. The root copy now uses paths
from the repository root and the versioned copy keeps the ../ form; both
sets were resolved against the tree. The same two links are broken the
same way in the v0.4.0 through v0.4.2 notes, left as shipped history.

The contributor tallies are re-derived against maint..HEAD rather than
adjusted: twenty commits from outside the project and 171 from me, with
Arjen at fifteen and fr34aky at two. An earlier count of twelve and 138
was carried from a measurement taken three days before this content was
written, and the BLE branch widened the gap after it. Arjen's NixOS flake
module, the UDP sin6_scope_id fix and most of the BLE rework were
uncredited, as was fr34aky's L2CAP PSM seam. They want one last re-derive
at tag time if anything lands before the tag.

A sweep of all 99 tracked markdown files against the tree corrected
fifty-three of them. Four told the reader to run a build.sh that does not
exist; the only harness builder is testing/scripts/build.sh. The BLE build
prerequisites were described as optional on the strength of a probe that
build.rs does not perform, and bluez was named a build prerequisite when
libdbus-sys asks only for libdbus-1-dev and pkg-config and bluez is the
runtime daemon. Link cost is the primary sort key in next-hop ranking, not
reserved for future use; Ethernet runs on macOS as well as Linux; the BLE
MTU is the L2CAP CoC MTU rather than a negotiated ATT_MTU; effective
Ethernet MTU is 1497; the LAN discovery subsystem is src/mdns and eight
citations still named a src/discovery that never existed here. The
connectivity states in three tutorials were invented, and their jq filters
matched nothing including healthy peers. One command filtered on a literal
fd97: address prefix, which only the first byte of fixes, so it returned
empty for all but one reader in 256 and every later step using the
variable failed silently. transports.tor.advertise_on_nostr was
undocumented despite being validated against node.rendezvous.nostr.enabled.

The transport design document gains the BLE section it never had, written
from the source: the backend cascade and its compile_error tripwire, the
platform gate, the PSM advertisement wire layout and the byte budget that
forces a 16-bit service-data key, and the probe and admission bounds.

Three source files carried the same class of staleness and are corrected
with the documentation: the OpenWrt ipk usage line and Makefile error text
both named a packaging/openwrt that does not exist, and chaos.sh parsed
--subnet without listing it.

Folded in with the content commit, having been prepared alongside it:

The three GitHub Action pins that had gone stale. Every third-party
action is pinned to a commit SHA, nothing reports that a pin has aged,
and re-resolving all ten against their tags found dorny/test-reporter@v2,
taiki-e/install-action@v2 and vmactions/freebsd-vm@v1 had moved. The
three install-action@nextest references stay unpinned, since that action
reads the tool to install from the ref name. check-action-pins.sh passes
at 75 references and all nine workflow files parse.

The lockfile refresh, which is the mutating half of the dependency sweep.
Thirty-six packages move to their latest semver-compatible versions and
every one is transitive; nothing declared in Cargo.toml changes version.
No advisory forces any of them. It was taken before the validation
battery, because a gate run against a lockfile that later moves proves
nothing about what ships.

The sha2 0.10 to 0.11, hkdf 0.12 to 0.13 and bech32 0.11 to 0.12 majors,
three of the four deferred at v0.4.0 for change surface rather than
security. All three land with no source change. sha2 and hkdf must move
together, since both depend on digest 0.11, and neither changes an
algorithm. That matters because the chaining-key KDF in the Noise
handshake is built on Hkdf::<Sha256>, where an output change would be a
wire break rather than a compile error; no known-answer vectors exist for
that path, so the wire-compatibility gate is what covers it. secp256k1
0.31 is deliberately absent, since nostr's own requirement would leave
two copies of the ECC library in the tree.

The README support matrix, rebuilt as one feature table broken out by
Linux variety. A single Linux column hid that Debian, Ubuntu, Arch and
NixOS are one glibc build differing in packaging, that OpenWrt is musl
and drops BLE, and that Android is not a daemon platform. Transport rows
sort by how many platforms carry them. A Native API row reads its
platform set from the cfg gates. The installer row becomes a package
format row naming the artifact, and only the .deb is exercised per
release.

Four changelog and release-note gaps the BLE re-walk found: a Bluetooth
LE bullet stranded inside the released 0.4.2 section, a missing Fixed
entry for the scan and probe loop counting a pool-refused connection as
an established link, the unnamed embedder call that installs an
application-owned radio, and the fact that stopping the transport now
stops scanning as well as advertising.

Three release-document gaps found walking the unsurveyed commits: the UDP
reuse-flag fix stated in the direction opposite to the one it was made,
with the silent second-daemon bind it prevents left unsaid; the corrected
native-API socket paragraph carried into both release-note copies, which
still named SOCK_SEQPACKET on FreeBSD and two kernels where three are
handled; and the coordinate-cache hardening, which shipped with no text
anywhere despite adding four operator-visible status fields. That last
entry states plainly that the checks are mitigations and not a closure,
since the coordinate is still not authenticated.

Also folded in, the documentation pass that followed the content commit:

A stage-pipeline diagram for the probe, embedded in the fipsctl
reference under the five-stage list. It draws the five stages left to
right with each stage's failure reasons below it, and the bypass that
skips both lookup stages when the coordinates are cached or the target
is a direct peer. Its branches come from the probe state machine rather
than from the report, so the path stage is drawn as the one failure that
does not stop the probe.

A rewrite of the README's "What FIPS does" section. It now opens with
what a machine running FIPS gets, rather than with the two deployment
modes, and gives the self-organizing and permissionless property its own
paragraph since it holds for both modes.

A regrouping of the README's feature list into the mesh, getting traffic
onto it, and running a node, with a bullet added for the native datagram
API, which had none despite sitting in the support matrix. The Quick
start now leads with the released packages rather than a source build.
It also fixes a real defect: the package enables fips.service and
fips-dns.service and starts neither on a fresh install, so .fips name
resolution was silently dead until the next reboot and neither page said
to start the service.

A rewrite of the release notes. They opened with seven subsections of
upgrade caveats and reached the first feature two hundred lines in; they
now open with a summary of the release and elaborate below it in the
same order. Android is stated as supported through an embedded crate
rather than as a standalone daemon, consistently across all three
documents. The OpenWrt pair is corrected: it is 802.11s between routers
with FIPS supplying encryption, authentication and routing, plus a
convention of an open !FIPS SSID a client joins over WiFi, not meshing
over a router's own radios. The probe's path output is described as the
least-common-ancestor walk, which is the worst-case fallback route
rather than the route a packet takes. Detail that did not change what a
reader does was cut from the notes and kept in the changelog.

2026-08-30 10:42:59 +00:00

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Join the FIPS Test Mesh

In this tutorial you will connect your FIPS daemon to a public test peer over UDP, watch the link come up, and reach the peer's mesh address from your machine. By the end you will have seen one complete end-to-end flow — config, handshake, live link, traffic — for a real peer somewhere out on the public internet.

The whole exercise should take about ten minutes. If you have already worked through getting-started.md and have the fips daemon running on your host, you have everything you need.

What you'll build

   ┌────────────────────┐         UDP/IPv4         ┌──────────────────────┐
   │   your fips node   │ ──────────────────────── │      test-us01       │
   │   ephemeral npub   │  test-us01.fips.network  │  npub1qmc3...zel98   │
   │   fips0  fd97:..:Y │           :2121          │   fips0  fd97:..:T   │
   └────────────────────┘                          └──────────────────────┘

Your daemon will peer with one of the public test nodes the project maintains. test-us01 has a stable DNS name, listens on UDP/2121, and is reachable from any network that permits arbitrary outbound UDP.

Peer vs. node. In FIPS terminology, a peer is a node you have a direct link to — same Noise IK handshake, same transport socket. A node is any participant on the mesh, whether you peer with it directly or reach it through one or more hops via your peer's connections. Peering is a local configuration choice; reachability is mesh-wide. One good peer connects you to everyone the rest of the mesh connects to.

After the link to test-us01 establishes, your daemon's fips0 adapter can reach test-us01 itself and — through test-us01's connections — any other node on the test mesh, exactly as if you had a direct connection to each of them.

About the test mesh. The project maintains a small roster of public test nodes (test-us01 through test-uk01) intended for new-user on-ramps and integration testing. They accept inbound peering from arbitrary npubs without prior coordination. A future reference doc will list the full roster; for this tutorial you only need test-us01 as your peer, and test-us02 later on as a second mesh destination to demonstrate forwarding.

Step 1: Confirm the daemon is running

sudo systemctl status fips

Expect active (running). If it is not running, the getting-started guide covers installation and service management. While you're checking, note your daemon's current npub:

sudo fipsctl show status

Look for the npub field. With the default ephemeral-identity config, this regenerates on every restart — that is fine for the tutorial. test-us01 admits any inbound npub.

Step 2: Add a static peer to the daemon config

Edit /etc/fips/fips.yaml. Find the line that reads peers: [] and replace it with:

peers:
  - npub: "npub1qmc3cvfz0yu2hx96nq3gp55zdan2qclealn7xshgr448d3nh6lks7zel98"
    alias: "test-us01"
    addresses:
      - transport: udp
        addr: "test-us01.fips.network:2121"
    connect_policy: auto_connect

What each field does:

npub — the canonical Nostr public key of test-us01. This is who your daemon will mutually authenticate with over Noise IK.
alias — a short name your daemon will use when referring to this peer in logs and fipsctl show peers output. Optional.
addresses — one or more transport endpoints. UDP on the published hostname and port is the most direct path.
connect_policy: auto_connect — your daemon initiates an outbound connection rather than waiting for the peer to reach in.

Step 3: Restart the daemon

sudo systemctl restart fips

Watch the daemon's journal as it comes back up and dials the peer:

sudo journalctl -u fips -f

Within a few seconds you should see lines mentioning:

An outbound connection attempt to test-us01 or test-us01.fips.network:2121
A handshake completion (a "Noise IK link handshake complete" style line, or "peer authenticated" with the test-us01 npub)
An MMP / link metrics entry naming test-us01

If the handshake does not complete within roughly 30 seconds, jump to Troubleshooting below.

Step 4: Verify the link

sudo fipsctl show peers

Expect one entry whose display_name is test-us01. Useful fields:

connectivity — should be connected.
transport_addr — the resolved UDP endpoint your daemon is using to reach test-us01.
transport_type — udp.
mmp.srtt_ms — appears once the first MMP report has been exchanged. This is your round-trip time to test-us01.

The transport view confirms your UDP listener and the peer mapping:

sudo fipsctl show transports

Step 5: Ping your peer

test-us01's mesh address derives from its npub. Address it as <npub>.fips and your daemon's local DNS responder will translate that to its fd97:... mesh address.

First see the resolved address:

dig npub1qmc3cvfz0yu2hx96nq3gp55zdan2qclealn7xshgr448d3nh6lks7zel98.fips AAAA +short

You should see one fd97:... line.

Now ping it:

ping6 -c 4 npub1qmc3cvfz0yu2hx96nq3gp55zdan2qclealn7xshgr448d3nh6lks7zel98.fips

Expect four replies. The first packet may take noticeably longer than subsequent ones — that round trip includes destination discovery, FSP session establishment, and the proactive path-MTU probe. After that, the RTT settles to a steady value reflecting the path between your host and test-us01.

This confirms the direct link works. So far, though, you have only reached the peer you configured. The next step demonstrates the mesh-wide reach that peering buys you.

Step 6: Reach a different node through the mesh

test-us02 is another public test node. You did not add it to your peers: block — your daemon has no direct link to it. But because test-us01 participates in the same mesh and has its own connections to other nodes, your daemon can reach test-us02 through test-us01 without any additional configuration.

ping6 -c 4 npub10yffd020a4ag8zcy75f9pruq3rnghvvhd5hphl9s62zgp35s560qrksp9u.fips

Same form, different npub. Expect replies. The packets travel from your daemon to test-us01 over the direct UDP link, then onward through test-us01 (and possibly other test-mesh nodes) to reach test-us02's fips0 adapter. Replies retrace the path.

This is the central FIPS guarantee: peering is local, but reachability is mesh-wide. You only need one good peer to talk to everyone else they (transitively) talk to.

If the test-us02 ping fails while the test-us01 ping succeeded, the test mesh's routing between those two nodes is momentarily unhealthy — try again in a minute, or pick a different test node from the roster. The link to your peer is unaffected.

What you've learned

You now have a single FIPS node connected to one peer in the public test mesh, with reach to every node that mesh routes you to. You have seen:

Identity. Your daemon's ephemeral keypair authenticated to test-us01 over Noise IK without either side trusting anyone in advance.
Transports. A UDP socket on your host carries authenticated, encrypted mesh frames to your peer. No central server, no VPN concentrator.
Peering vs. reachability. You configured one peer (test-us01) and got reach to a second node (test-us02) for free, through the mesh. The same shape extends to every other node test-us01 can reach.
Naming. The local .fips resolver translated npub-form hostnames into their fd97:... mesh addresses with no external DNS traffic.
End-to-end. ICMPv6 traffic over the FIPS data plane reached both destinations and came back, end-to-end encrypted along every link layer in the path.

By the way: shortnames. Those long npub1...fips destinations are the canonical addresses, but the installer ships an /etc/fips/hosts file with shortname entries for the public test mesh, so test-us01.fips and test-us02.fips resolve to the same addresses without typing 80 characters of bech32. You can add your own entries too. See ../how-to/host-aliases.md. The rest of the tutorials use shortnames where they're available.

Troubleshooting

If the handshake does not complete:

Outbound UDP may be blocked. Some networks filter arbitrary outbound UDP or block return traffic. From a UDP-filtered network you cannot reach peers that only publish UDP endpoints — your reachable peers are limited to those that accept incoming TCP (outbound TCP is typically allowed even on networks that block UDP). The test-mesh nodes publish a TCP endpoint on port 443 for exactly this case; replace the udp entry in the peer's addresses: block with the TCP equivalent:
```
addresses:
  - transport: tcp
    addr: "test-us01.fips.network:443"
```
Restart the daemon and re-check fipsctl show peers. The link will be slower than UDP but is the supported transport for restrictive egress environments.
Confirm the testnode is reachable at the IP layer. Run dig +short test-us01.fips.network to confirm DNS, then nc -uvz test-us01.fips.network 2121 to confirm UDP reachability.
Confirm your config parsed. sudo journalctl -u fips -n 50 near the daemon-start time will show config-load lines and any parse errors.
Time skew. A heavily skewed system clock can make signature validation fail. timedatectl status should show the system clock as synchronized.

What's next

These are the natural follow-on tutorials in the new-user progression. Some are still being written and will appear alongside this one in the tutorials/ directory.

Make your node's identity persistent. persistent-identity walks through pinning the daemon to a stable Nostr keypair so your npub does not change across restarts — the prerequisite for other operators adding you to their peers: blocks.
Resolve peers via Nostr. resolve-peers-via-nostr is the smallest useful step toward Nostr-mediated discovery: configure a peer by npub alone and let the daemon look up the current endpoint from public relays. The first of three tutorials covering Nostr discovery; the others — advertise-your-node and open-discovery — round out the publish and ambient-consume sides.
Trace a connection end-to-end. ipv6-adapter-walkthrough walks the data path from a .fips DNS query through session setup to the far-side TUN adapter, using fipstop and fipsctl to observe each step.
Reach services on other mesh nodes. reach-mesh-services generalizes the ping6 you just ran to any IPv6-capable tool — nc, traceroute6, curl, ssh — addressed by <npub>.fips. The point is that the FIPS data plane is just IPv6; applications don't need to know they're on a mesh.
Host a service of your own. host-a-service walks through bringing up a small HTTP server bound to fips0 so mesh nodes can reach it, with a deliberate exposure decision (mesh-only vs every interface), the mesh firewall, and a brief signpost to the separate, unrelated peer ACL (which controls who may peer with your node, not what they can reach on your fips0).
ground-up-mesh — Bring up two devices on a shared physical link — Ethernet, WiFi, or Bluetooth — with no pre-existing IP infrastructure. The second deployment mode of FIPS, coexisting on the same daemon as the overlay peer to test-us01 you just configured.

For "what just happened, in detail":

../design/fips-architecture.md — the protocol stack and the two-layer encryption model.
../design/fips-mesh-layer.md — Noise IK link encryption, hop-by-hop forwarding.
../design/fips-session-layer.md — end-to-end Noise XK, session lifecycle.
../design/fips-ipv6-adapter.md — the TUN, the local DNS responder, MTU enforcement.

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