Johnathan Corgan
45a8a4cd9b
Forward-merge of 12 master commits past the previous merge (823b830, master @18019bb): dep-audit bumps (rand, clap, tun, rtnetlink, windows-service, plus the bump-safe lockfile batch), bloom-storm chaos scenario, control-socket resolver consolidation, gateway dns.listen default change, OpenWrt ipk README refresh, gateway tutorial review, Ethernet MTU rustdoc fix, dead session-variant drop, CHANGELOG prep. Conflict resolution: - CHANGELOG.md: both bullets kept under [Unreleased] / Fixed. Master's spanning-tree internal-path-propagation fix precedes next's tree-ancestry-test determinism entry and the responder-Disconnect XX-handshake entry. - src/protocol/session.rs: kept next's SessionSetup/SessionAck variants and rustdoc. Master's drop of those variants suits v0.3.0's FSP phase-byte dispatch but is undone by next's v0.4.0 wire format, which retains the variants and uses the inner msg_type byte for handshake identification. - src/transport/ethernet/mod.rs: kept next's "interface MTU - 4" comment. Master corrected the v0.3.0 3-byte rustdoc; next redesigned the framing to a 4-byte header (type/flags/length) for shared-media beacons, so master's correction does not apply to next's format. Auto-merged cleanly: Cargo.toml (next's 0.4.0-dev + the new dep pins from master), Cargo.lock, all gateway docs, docs/reference/configuration.md, packaging files, .github/workflows/ci.yml, testing/chaos/sim/* and testing/ci-local.sh (bloom-storm additions), src/config/*. Local verification: cargo build --release, cargo test (1252 passed, 4 ignored), cargo clippy -D warnings, cargo fmt --check all green.
FIPS Documentation
FIPS (Free Internetworking Peering System) is a self-organizing encrypted mesh network built on Nostr identities, capable of operating over arbitrary transports — local networks, the public internet, Tor, Bluetooth, or point-to-point links — without central infrastructure.
With FIPS, your machine becomes a node in the mesh with a self-generated cryptographic identity. There are two ways to deploy it.
As an overlay on top of existing IP networks, FIPS lets your node reach any other FIPS node wherever it sits — behind a NAT, on a different ISP, on a phone over cellular, on a laptop with only Bluetooth in range, or behind a Tor onion. The mesh forwards IPv6 traffic transparently and end-to-end encrypted, with no central VPN concentrator or coordinating server.
From the ground up over raw Ethernet, WiFi, or Bluetooth, FIPS provides a complete permissionless network without any pre-existing IP infrastructure, ISP, or DNS. Any node that joins the link gets routable IPv6 addresses, peer discovery, and a path to every other node automatically.
Either way, existing networking software runs over it unchanged: SSH, HTTP servers, file transfer, anything IPv6-native works the same way it would on a local network.
New to FIPS? Start with the Getting Started guide.
Documentation Sections
Tutorials
If you are starting from scratch and want a guided path to a working mesh, go here.
How-To Guides
If you have a specific task in mind — enabling a feature, deploying a component, diagnosing a problem — go here.
Reference
If you need to look up wire formats, configuration keys, command flags, or counter inventories, go here.
Design
If you want to understand how the mesh self-organizes, why FIPS makes the choices it does, or how the pieces fit together, go here.