Akita DDNS - Distributed DNS for Reticulum

Developed by Akita Engineering (www.akitaengineering.com)

Akita DDNS is a robust, decentralized, and dynamic destination naming system (DDNS) built specifically for the Reticulum Network Stack. It provides a resilient alternative to traditional centralized DNS for mapping human-readable names to dynamic Reticulum identities (RIDs) within a mesh network.

Leveraging Reticulum's inherent cryptography and peer-to-peer communication, Akita DDNS offers a secure and censorship-resistant way to manage names in environments where central authorities are undesirable or unavailable.

Features

• Decentralized Registry: No single point of failure. Registry data is distributed across participating nodes via a gossip protocol.
• Cryptographically Secure: Utilizes Reticulum's identity-based signatures for authenticating registrations, updates, and namespace control.
• Dynamic Updates: Nodes can automatically update their associated RIDs when they change.
• Namespace Management: Organize names into namespaces to prevent collisions. Supports cryptographic ownership of namespaces.
• Resilient: Designed to operate effectively over Reticulum's potentially low-bandwidth, high-latency mesh links.
• TTL (Time-to-Live): Registrations automatically expire, ensuring stale entries are eventually removed.
• Persistence: Optionally saves state (registry, namespaces, reputation) locally to survive restarts.
• Rate Limiting: Basic protection against request flooding.
• Reputation System: Optional tracking of peer behavior to potentially prioritize reliable nodes (future enhancement).
• Modular Codebase: Organized Python package for maintainability and extensibility.
• CLI Interface: Command-line tool for easy interaction (register, resolve, manage namespaces, inspect local state).

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone Akita-Dynamic-DDNS-for-Reticulum 
   cd akita-ddns # Or your chosen directory name

2. Install dependencies:

   pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Configure: Create akita_config.yaml in the project root. Crucially, set akita_namespace_identity_hash to a unique, shared hash for all nodes participating in your Akita DDNS network. Refer to the example config file for details.

Usage

See docs/examples.md for detailed usage examples.

1. Run the Server Node:

# Ensure akita_config.yaml is present
python -m akita_ddns.main server

This node will listen, gossip, and serve requests.

2. Use the CLI:

Bash

# Register a name (using default identity and default namespace)
python -m akita_ddns.main cli register --name mynode

# Resolve a name
python -m akita_ddns.main cli resolve --name mynode

# Create a namespace (owned by default identity)
python -m akita_ddns.main cli create_namespace --namespace home

# List local persisted state (if enabled)
python -m akita_ddns.main cli list --registry --namespaces

Use python -m akita_ddns.main cli <command> --help for command-specific options.

Configuration (akita_config.yaml)

This file controls Akita's behavior. Key settings include:

• akita_namespace_identity_hash: Mandatory shared hash defining your network.
• persist_state: Enable/disable saving state to disk.
• persistence_path: Directory for state files.
• Timing intervals (gossip_interval, ttl_check_interval, etc.).
• Logging level (log_level).

Refer to the example akita_config.yaml for all options and detailed comments.

License

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0. See the LICENSE file for details.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please refer to docs/testing.md for testing information. Submit pull requests or open issues on the project repository.

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Akita Engineering - Building resilient communication systems. www.akitaengineering.com