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Arjen
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The transport-layer design gains an Interface Presence section: the three deployment scenarios that motivated it, the presence machine and its two invariants, why presence is IFF_UP and not IFF_UP|IFF_RUNNING, interface identity and the recreated-netdev case, the detection sources and their two rate limits, the optional policy, health as a level rather than a latch, the egress-MTU consequence, the logging rules, and what the mechanism retires. It records why the error deadline is a single ten-second window rather than a repeating severity ladder, so the ladder does not come back. The control-socket and fipsctl references described show_transports without its `interface` block, and the transport-layer state machine still implied that Up meant bound. Both now say what Up and presence each describe and how they differ, since "transport up, interface absent" is a normal state an operator will meet and would otherwise read as a contradiction. The configuration reference documents `optional` with the absence, log and retry behaviour of each setting, and the ground-up tutorial's dongle example gains optional: true, which is what that example is actually for.
FIPS Design
Architectural and protocol-level explanations for FIPS — the why and the how behind the wire and the system. For wire formats and configuration keys, see reference/. For task recipes, see how-to/. For end-to-end lessons, see tutorials/.
Reading Order
Start with fips-concepts.md for the novice-friendly framing of what FIPS is and why, then move to fips-architecture.md for the protocol stack, identity model, and two-layer encryption walkthrough. From there, follow the protocol stack from bottom to top. After the stack, fips-mesh-operation.md explains how the pieces work together at runtime. Cross-cutting and supporting documents cover specific subsystems in detail.
Foundations
| Document | Description |
|---|---|
| fips-concepts.md | What FIPS is, why it exists, mental model |
| fips-architecture.md | Protocol stack, identity, two-layer encryption |
| fips-prior-work.md | Designs and protocols FIPS builds on |
Protocol Stack
| Document | Description |
|---|---|
| fips-transport-layer.md | Transport layer: datagram delivery over arbitrary media |
| fips-mesh-layer.md | FIPS Mesh Protocol (FMP): peer authentication, link encryption, forwarding |
| fips-session-layer.md | FIPS Session Protocol (FSP): end-to-end encryption, sessions |
| fips-ipv6-adapter.md | IPv6 adaptation: TUN interface, DNS, MTU enforcement |
| fips-native-api.md | Native datagram API: pubkey-addressed flows over FSP, and what it is instead of the TUN path |
Cross-Cutting
| Document | Description |
|---|---|
| fips-mmp.md | Metrics Measurement Protocol (link + session) |
| fips-mtu.md | Path MTU model, encapsulation overhead, PMTUD |
| fips-security.md | fips0 interface threat model and default-deny baseline |
Mesh Behavior
| Document | Description |
|---|---|
| fips-mesh-operation.md | How the mesh operates: routing, discovery, error recovery |
| fips-nostr-discovery.md | Optional Nostr-mediated peer discovery and UDP NAT hole-punch |
| port-advertisement-and-nat-traversal.md | Nostr-signaled port advertisement and UDP NAT-traversal protocol; generic, with FIPS as an example implementation |
Deeper Dives
| Document | Description |
|---|---|
| fips-spanning-tree.md | Spanning tree algorithms: root discovery, parent selection, coordinates |
| fips-bloom-filters.md | Bloom filter properties: FPR analysis, size classes, split-horizon |
| spanning-tree-dynamics.md | Spanning tree walkthroughs: convergence scenarios, worked examples |
Adjacent Components
| Document | Description |
|---|---|
| fips-gateway.md | fips-gateway service: outbound (LAN-to-mesh) DNS-proxy + virtual-IP NAT and inbound (mesh-to-LAN) port-forwarding, sharing one nftables table |