meshchat

A decentralized chat network for cjdns, with an IRC front-end.

Note: this is experimental software. Use at your own risk!

Usage

• Build and run: make all && ./meshchat
• Connect to localhost:6999 in your IRC client.
• Join some channels.
• Wait for peers to be found.

What meshchat does

• It discovers peers by pinging all the nodes in your local cjdns routing table.
• It makes connections between other peers running meshchat.
• It serves an ircd that you can connect to with your regular IRC client.

What works

• You can use it and chat with people on the network.

How it works

• meshchat finds potential peers by querying cjdns's routing table using your local cjdns admin port. It periodically sends a greeting to all such potential peers, containing your nick and list of channels.
• Each message you send from the IRC client is encapsulated into a UDP packet and sent over your cjdns interface to all the peers that your meshchat instance thinks are online and in the appropriate channel.
• When it receives a message from a peer, it relays it to your IRC client.

What doesn't work

• Currently, the peer connections are over UDP. There is no re-sending or ACKs done, so messages may be dropped, especially if you sent many at once.