Reticulum WebChat

What is Reticulum WebChat?

A simple open-source web based LXMF client for Reticulum.

Features

• Supports sending and receiving messages between Reticulum WebChat, Sideband and Nomadnet.
• Supports receiving and saving images and attachments sent from Sideband.
• Supports sending images and file attachments.
• Supports saving inbound and outbound messages to a local database.
• Supports sending an announce to the network.
• Supports setting a custom display name to send in your announce.
• Supports viewing and searching peers discovered from announces.

Beta Features

• Support for Audio Calls to other Reticulum WebChat users.
  • Audio is encoded with codec2 to support low bandwidth links.
  • Using a microphone requires using the web ui over localhost or https, due to AudioWorklet secure context.
  • I have tested two-way audio calls over LoRa with a single hop. It works well when a reasonable bitrate is configured on the RNode.
• Support for browsing pages, and downloading files hosted on Nomad Network Nodes.

NOTE: micron format parsing is still in development, some pages may not render or work correctly at all.

How does it work?

• A python script (web.py) runs a Reticulum instance and a WebSocket server.
• The web page sends and receives LXMF packets encoded in json via the WebSocket.
• Web Browser -> WebSocket -> Python Reticulum -> (configured interfaces) -> (destination)
• LXMF messages sent and received are saved to a local SQLite database.

How to use it?

You will need to clone the repo, and run web.py.

git clone https://github.com/liamcottle/reticulum-webchat
cd reticulum-webchat
pip install -r requirements.txt
python web.py

NOTE: You should now be able to access the web interface at http://localhost:8000

For a full list of command line options, you can run;

python web.py --help

usage: web.py [-h] [--host [HOST]] [--port [PORT]] [--headless] [--identity-file IDENTITY_FILE] [--identity-base64 IDENTITY_BASE64] [--generate-identity-file GENERATE_IDENTITY_FILE] [--generate-identity-base64]
              [--reticulum-config-dir RETICULUM_CONFIG_DIR] [--storage-dir STORAGE_DIR]

ReticulumWebChat

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --host [HOST]         The address the web server should listen on.
  --port [PORT]         The port the web server should listen on.
  --headless            Web browser will not automatically launch when this flag is passed.
  --identity-file IDENTITY_FILE
                        Path to a Reticulum Identity file to use as your LXMF address.
  --identity-base64 IDENTITY_BASE64
                        A base64 encoded Reticulum Identity to use as your LXMF address.
  --generate-identity-file GENERATE_IDENTITY_FILE
                        Generates and saves a new Reticulum Identity to the provided file path and then exits.
  --generate-identity-base64
                        Outputs a randomly generated Reticulum Identity as base64 and then exits.
  --reticulum-config-dir RETICULUM_CONFIG_DIR
                        Path to a Reticulum config directory for the RNS stack to use (e.g: ~/.reticulum)
  --storage-dir STORAGE_DIR
                        Path to a directory for storing databases and config files (default: ./storage)

Using an existing Reticulum Identity

The first time you run this application, a new Reticulum identity is generated and saved to storage/identity.

If you want to use an existing identity;

• You can overwrite storage/identity with another identity file.
• Or, you can pass in a custom identity file path as a command line argument.

To use a custom identity file, provide the --identity-file argument followed by the path to your custom identity file.

python web.py --identity-file ./custom_identity_file

If you would like to generate a new identity, you can use the rnid utility provided by Reticulum.

rnid --generate ./new_identity_file

If you don't have access to the rnid command, you can use the following:

python web.py --generate-identity-file ./new_identity_file

Alternatively, you can provide a base64 encoded private key, like so;

python web.py --identity-base64 "GCN6mMhVemdNIK/fw97C1zvU17qjQPFTXRBotVckeGmoOwQIF8VOjXwNNem3CUOJZCQQpJuc/4U94VSsC39Phw=="

NOTE: this is a randomly generated identity for example purposes. Do not use it, it has been leaked!

Build from Source

• build_macos.sh - Builds a .dmg containing a .app
• build_windows.bat - Builds a .msi Windows Installer

Note: build_macos.sh must be run on a Mac, and build_windows.bat must be run on a Windows PC.

TODO

• add build script for macos binary
• auto build and release windows and macos binaries via github actions
• conversations/contacts list ui with unread indicators
• button to add peer to contacts, and show a tab for contacts, separate from peers list
• allow setting a custom name to show for a contact
• button to forget peers and contacts
• optimise ui to work nicely on a mobile device, such as Android/iOS
• support for managing Reticulum config/interfaces via the web ui

License

MIT