RMAP, Reticulum Network Worldwide Map Project

[fr33n0w]

Hello Reticulum Friends!

As requested by many local and international online friends, i created a Reticulum Map to share your nodes on it.

It's called RMAP - Reticulum Network Worldwide Map Project

The main idea at the base of this map is that will help find Reticulum Nodes connections around the world, and i hope it will also help in the growth of the entire Reticulum Network.

It all started from the need to create a local map to find nearby LoRa Nodes, also due to the lack of standard LoRa presets, as freely adjustable in RNode, it is not easy to agree on the frequency or other parameters to be used in the real world with other people.
This is how this map comes in handy by allowing you to view neighboring nodes and connect to them using same radio parameters.

...but lora nodes are just an extension of the whole Reticulum Network, so the idea has evolved during the first stages of the map creation as it follows: at the moment of the website launch (1st of March 2025) you can put on the map almost any type of Reticulum Nodes (Or Interfaces!), such as:

For radio nodes you can add: LoRa RNodes and TNC KiSS nodes, with all their own related information to be able to connect to them.

For LXMF Clients as Sideband or Meshchat: you can add your LXMF Peer Addres and share it with other people on RMAP, so you can consider it like a worldwide web address book for LXMF peers.

For NomadNet, you can share the page server address, the lxmf address and the propagation node if available.

You can share your RNSD TCPInterface Server with it's related info to connect to it,

and is also possible to share your RetiBBS Server addres and info (RetiBBS from kc1awv GitHub Project).

You can include Notes and Descriptions in every node type, if you have an i2p server for example you can include it in there, or if you want to add the lxmf address in you lora node, you can do it in the note field.

There is a node filter on the bottom bar to show or hide only the desired type of node or all node types (shown by default).

Adding nodes independently is quick and easy, just fill out the forms and follow the instructions provided for correct inclusion in the map. Node position on the map is converted automatically into gps position (lat, lon) from the inserted full city address, so you don't have to search for latitude and longitude for yourself manually.

You decide: if you like the map, feel fre to share your node. if you don't like or want to stay completely anonymous, don't share it!

For the privacy factor, the website don't track users in any way (so there is nothing that will link their identity to the nodes created, preserving Reticulum anonymity), no cookies or tokens or sessions at all, also the phisical city address is not saved in any way, it's only needed to create the position of the map marker (this is saved in a db on rmap server for the need to appear on the map, of course.).
Addresses could be approssimated for privacy for any kind of tcp nodes, instead for radio nodes (Lora or TNC), more precision is suggested to make sure other people can be in your signal coverage and connect to your node.

Map is based on LeafLet opensource map, linked to OpenStreetMap and other map layers (Leaflet is the most customizable opensource map javascript, but don't have its own world graphic representation, it needs external layers to show the map).

Leaflet Javascript is hosted remotely by unpkg.com that someone is concerned about being a mitm because is maintained by cloudflare. First I'm not aware if that fact that is true, and second the points on the map are saved on the RMAP server and displayed in realtime when the page is rendered in the browser from its javascript, it's not saved on the map hosting itself, so from their side, even if its a mitm site, they cannot see the spots on the map!!

If for someone this is a concern, instead of writing useless spots on the map, let's discuss it here and i'll try to self host Leaflet directly on RMAP server without calling the external unpkg javascript!

This project required 3 weeks of intense work for its realization (and some economic investment to get the server and the domain name), and it was launched a few hours ago, so it can be improved and perfected in the future.

Feel free to send me your feedback, bug or errors reports and your considerations, there is always time and margin to improve everything while we are alive!

In the hope that all the Reticulum Network can benefit from this project, I leave you the links to reach RMAP:

RMAP Project Website:
https://rmap.world

TCPServerInterface:
Host: rmap.world
Port: 4242

R-MAP NomadNet:
a4a5e861626ce97c9aa544d9ecdf6d22:/page/index.mu

RMAP On Telegram:
https://t.me/reticulum_rmap
(Read Only Group, there is a telegram bot linked to rmap that send a group message when a new node is added)

For any info or questions you can reply here or...
you can reach me on Reticulum, of course!!! :)

LXMF: 0d051f3b6f844380c3e0c5d14e37fac8

[markqvist]

Great work! A lot of people have been asking for something like this! Thanks for putting all the effort into it :) It's looking great.

[markqvist]

Down the road, a really useful way would be to send a confirmation request or something to the users own LXMF address over Reticulum. That way people would not be able to add entries for nodes they don't actually control and hold the Identity Keys for. Or in case of adding non-LXMF related entries, simply create a signing challenge that users need to sign with their own identity to confirm addition. Anyone can then just use the included rnid utility to do so, with any kind of Reticulum Identity, for any kind of map entry.

You could post a simple command line example upon addition, and wait for the user to sign the challenge, and input the signature result of that into a field on the site, which can then verify the signature before it is made public.

I think that would be a good and viable approach to make sure people can only add their own nodes, as it is cryptographically guaranteed.

[fr33n0w]

its a very interesting and valid possibility, i'll study how to implement this validation method or something similar in the simplest way possible for the final users! thanks for the hint!

[pa2eon]

Dear fr33n0w .. it will be good to give also the possibility that you can change the information after you have 'uploaded' the rnode information on the map. For example IP numbers, LXMF numbers etc. Maybe an email address or login registration for that is needed.
Good work done !.

[pa2eon]

Dear fr33n0w: A small error in your server information .. inside the reticulum MeshChat you have to use the client .. not the server:
TCPServerInterface:
Host: rmap.world
Port: 4242

Change to:
type = TCPClientInterface
interface_enabled = true
target_host = rmap.world
target_port = 4242

[fr33n0w]

hi pa2eon, thank you for your feedback!

For the first request, i already told in the second reply to mark: "In the next updates there will be the possibility to edit or delete the nodes inserted, I just have to find the right system to do it without user registration to the site to maintain anonymity" and i'm working to figure how to do it, as said, so no email registration (even if creating an account on the website will be easier to do instead of complicating things like i'm doing now to respect users privacy.). I'm thinking of a method to implement a sort of 2 factor authorization linked to the lxmf addres and this will lead to resolve the problem evidenced by mark (other people shouldn't be allowed add nodes that they don't own) and will add the capacity of editing or removing nodes with the same code received on lxmf on the node submission or "upload". but it needs a lot of work: 1st i need to understand clearly how to do it, and second, i must rewrite most of the website code to implement this, so i need some time to do it. but upgrade is actually work in progress, so in the next future these features will appear on the map.

for the second question..ok...from my machine point of view this is a server interface, and of course, the users that wants to connect to a server needs a client interface, it's working like this for every protocol in the world, but ok, if this can be misunderstood i try to modify it, but is only an extra info unrelated to the map.

[TheBamse]

Thanks for creating the map, awesome opt-in service!

Feature suggestion in addition to what's already mentioned; ability to add multiple service types to one single map marker. As someone who hosts several nodes running LoRa, rnsd, nomadnet, retibbs on multiple nodes at multiple locations fairly close to one another the area gets quite peppered with markers :)

[fr33n0w]

Hello TheBamse! Thank you for your feedback!! In the first days of developing the map i started exactly like this, with just one form and one marker including all the possibilities for different kind of nodes in a single place, but marker's popup resulted extremely cluttered and very huge on small displays like mobile phones, so i decided to differenciate nodes by color codes and added the filters to show only the desired ones to be observed excluding all the rest. They are also "clustered" so if you put 10 nodes in a single place, they are all joined together and expanded only on click to avoid "visual chaos" on the map. From my point of view this was the best practical method do insert multiple different nodes, but your suggestion is appreciated, if i'll find another better method i'll try implement it.

[fr33n0w]

Just a little news about new upcoming feature:

i'm involved in a new a work in progress to implement "dynamic Live Nodes" as addition to the previously "static" submitted nodes, using the MQTT function found in the last version of Sideband.

The map markers position is retrieved live from sideband client connected to a mqtt server, and all the activated telemetry info in the sideband options are shown in the info popup. And it's all automated, no need to compile a form, just add the mqtt server in sideband and you will appear on the map!

Feature is coming soon...Stay Tuned! :)

(It's only possible with Sideband at the moment, maybe there will be also a MeshChat or Reticulum MQTT interface in the future...who knows :D)