Files
fips/docs
Johnathan Corgan b2fd08817c Merge fix/peer-connectivity-from-idle into master, reporting a silent peer as stale
Carries the idle-time connectivity derivation for show_peers and the
tick-published peer row up from the maint line. The discovery dial gate that
master wraps as active_peer_link_is_live now reaches the same idle rule
through peer_link_is_stale, and that helper's doc names the gate alongside
the same-path re-dial.

The only conflict was the doc comment and visibility of the heartbeat-interval
test helper: master's doc text is kept with the pub(super) visibility the new
control tests need.
2026-09-14 15:28:54 +00:00
..
2026-09-12 14:41:38 +00:00
2026-08-30 10:42:59 +00:00

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.

Releases

If you want the notes for a particular version — what changed, what broke, and what to do about it on upgrade — go here.