You remember how it felt to get a Gmail address in 2004 — when you had to know someone to get in, and having one meant something. Or the people who grabbed a two-word domain name in 1995 and are still sitting on it. Or the developers who spun up their first Bitcoin node when you could still mine on a laptop.
There's a window right now, and most people don't even know it's open.
It works over radio waves, LoRa, TCP/IP, Bluetooth — whatever path it can find between nodes. And right now, the number of people who have a presence on it is small enough that you could know most of them by name. That's about to change. This is your chance to be there first.
What Does "Having a Space" Actually Mean?
When you set up a NomadNet node, you get a destination hash — a unique cryptographic address that belongs to you and only you. Not registered with a company. Not tied to an email address or a phone number. Generated from your own cryptographic identity, on your own machine.
That hash is your address on the mesh. Share it and people can visit your page from anywhere on the network — whether they're connected via the internet, a LoRa radio link, a local network, or a radio repeater miles away.
You can put whatever you want on it. A blog. A radio station guide. A local community hub. Technical notes. Fiction. A manifesto. A simple "hello, I'm here." There are no content policies to violate, no algorithm deciding whether your page gets seen. People who know your hash can reach you directly, peer to peer, with end-to-end encryption baked into the protocol.
If you list yourself in the Node Star directory, you'll be one of a few hundred people in the world with a public presence on the mesh. That number is going to grow. It always does.
Why Now?
Every network has a moment where the early adopters get in before the crowd. Before that moment, the barrier feels high. After that moment, everything is easier — but the ground floor is taken.
NomadNet is in that before moment right now.
The technical barrier has dropped dramatically. Nomad Navigator — a free, open-source desktop app — gives you everything in one window: a page browser, encrypted messaging, voice calls, a built-in Micron editor for writing your own pages, interface discovery, multi-identity support, offline maps, and a whole lot more. Install it, open it, and you're on the mesh.
There are also public backbone nodes you can connect to over the regular internet as a starting point, so you don't need radio hardware to participate. When you're ready to go fully off-grid, the hardware options are there. But you can start today, from your laptop, with nothing but a Wi-Fi connection.
Install Nomad Navigator
Nomad Navigator is a full-featured Reticulum client that opens in its own window — a proper desktop app, not a browser tab. It's built on MeshChatX, repackaged and distributed for the Node Star community.
Linux
sudo apt install ./NomadNavigator-v4.3.1-linux-amd64.debThen launch Nomad Navigator from your application menu, or run nomad-navigator from a terminal.
Windows
Run the installer. Nomad Navigator will appear in your Start menu. Double-click and you're in.
Nomad Navigator is an all-in-one client. Out of the box you get: a µ-page browser, encrypted LXMF messaging, voice calls (LXST), a Micron page editor, file transfers, interface discovery (auto-detect radios, TCP peers, and more), multiple identity management, offline maps, page archiving, built-in Reticulum documentation, and a lot more. You don't need to install anything else.
Connect to the Backbone
When you first launch Nomad Navigator, Reticulum creates a config file automatically. To reach other nodes on the mesh, you need to add a connection to a public backbone node.
Option A — Use Interface Discovery
Nomad Navigator has built-in interface discovery. Open the app, go to the Interfaces section, and it can auto-detect available connections on your local network. If a public backbone node is reachable, you can connect with a click.
Option B — Add a backbone node manually
Get a backbone node address from rmap.world — an interactive map of public Reticulum nodes. Click any node marked as a public entrypoint and grab its host and port.
Your Reticulum config lives here:
- Linux / macOS:
~/.reticulum/config - Windows:
C:\Users\YourName\AppData\Roaming\Reticulum\config
Add a TCPClientInterface block under [interfaces]:
[[My Backbone Node]]
type = TCPClientInterface
enabled = yes
target_host = the.node.hostname
target_port = 4242Save the file, restart Nomad Navigator, and try browsing a known node hash. If a page loads, you're live on the mesh.
Set Up Your Own Node
Browsing is great. Having your own page is better.
To host pages that others can visit, you need to run NomadNet — the node software that serves µ-pages to visitors on the mesh.
pip install nomadnet
nomadnetThe first time it runs, NomadNet generates your cryptographic identity and creates a default page structure. Your node's destination hash will be printed to the console — copy this down. This is your permanent address on the mesh.
Keep your destination hash somewhere safe. It's your address on the network. By default, pages are served from ~/.nomadnetwork/storage/pages/ and written in Micron markup.
Write Your Pages
Nomad Navigator includes a built-in Micron editor — so you can write and preview your µ-pages right inside the app. No separate text editor needed.
If you want a head start, the Node Star setup script can generate a working 3-page site for you:
python3 setup-nomadnet-pages.pyDownload: nodestar.net/setup-nomadnet-pages.py
| File | What it is |
|---|---|
index.mu | Your home page — the first thing visitors see |
about.mu | An about page — introduce yourself and your setup |
links.mu | A links page — pre-loaded with Reticulum resources |
All three pages are fully functional and link to each other. Start NomadNet, paste your destination hash into Nomad Navigator's browser, and your site is already live. Then edit the .mu files — either from Navigator's Micron editor or any text editor — and make them yours.
Micron quick reference
Get Listed
Here's where the early adopter payoff kicks in. Submit your node to the Node Star directory.
Right now this list is short. The people on it are the pioneers. A year from now there will be a lot more entries, and yours will have been there from the beginning.
You can also announce yourself directly from Nomad Navigator — open the Home tab and hit Announce. You'll start appearing in other users' node lists automatically.
Send Your First Message
NomadNet isn't just pages — it's also a messaging system. LXMF (Lightweight Extensible Message Format) works across apps: Sideband on Android and iOS, Nomad Navigator, and any other NomadNet node.
Nomad Navigator has a full messaging interface built in. From the Messages tab, you can:
- See your LXMF address — share it like an email address
- Compose a message to any LXMF address you know
- Send via Direct (recipient online) or Propagated (store-and-forward, works even offline)
- Receive messages from anyone who knows your address
- Transfer files to other users on the mesh
Nomad Navigator also supports LXST voice calls — encrypted audio calls over the mesh, encoded with codec2 for low-bandwidth links. You can call anyone else running a compatible client.
The mesh has a real messaging community. Introduce yourself. It's early enough that people genuinely welcome new arrivals.
Your Identity Is Portable — Take It Everywhere
This is one of the best features of Reticulum and one of the least talked about: your cryptographic identity is just a file, and you can move it anywhere.
Your identity determines your destination hash — your address on the mesh. It's the same address whether you're running NomadNet on a Raspberry Pi, Nomad Navigator on a laptop, Sideband on your phone, or any other compatible app. One identity, one address, every platform.
Nomad Navigator also supports multiple identities — you can switch between them from within the app, no file juggling needed.
Where the identity file lives
| App | Identity file location |
|---|---|
| Nomad Navigator | storage/identity (in app data directory) |
| NomadNet | ~/.nomadnetwork/storage/identity |
| Sideband (Linux/macOS) | ~/.sideband/storage/identity |
| rnsd / Reticulum | ~/.reticulum/storage/identity |
On Windows, replace ~ with C:\Users\YourName\AppData\Roaming\.
Moving your identity between apps
It's just a file copy.
# Copy your NomadNet identity into Nomad Navigator's storage
cp ~/.nomadnetwork/storage/identity /path/to/navigator/storage/identity
# Or the other way around
cp /path/to/navigator/storage/identity ~/.nomadnetwork/storage/identityRestart whichever app you just copied into. It will load the new identity and present the same destination hash and LXMF address as the original.
Your identity file is small (a few kilobytes) and irreplaceable. If you lose it, you lose your destination hash. No one can recover it for you — that's the whole point of cryptographic identity. There is no "forgot my hash" link.
Copy it somewhere safe today.
Using Sideband on your phone
Sideband is the mobile LXMF client for Android and iOS. It shares the same LXMF address space as NomadNet and Nomad Navigator — messages sent to your LXMF address arrive on whichever app is running. Sideband has its own identity export/import in app settings.
Off the Internet Entirely
Everything above works over a regular internet connection as a starting point. But Reticulum was built for the world after the internet — or alongside it, or instead of it.
LoRa radio
A pair of RNode devices or a cheap LoRa32 board lets you connect to the mesh over radio, with no internet required. Line-of-sight links of 10–30km are common. Nomad Navigator's interface discovery can auto-detect connected radio hardware. Your node can simultaneously be on the TCP backbone and the LoRa mesh — same identity, same hash, reachable over both.
Raspberry Pi node
A Pi Zero or Pi 4 running NomadNet makes a low-power always-on node. Add a LoRa hat and you've got a mesh radio gateway for around $50. Set one up at home, one at a friend's house, and you have private encrypted communications that work without any infrastructure.
Community mesh
Find local Reticulum operators at rmap.world. A cluster of nodes in the same area? That's a local mesh. You can message your neighbors without the message touching the internet at all.
Your Destination Hash Is Your Address
The internet you grew up with is built on addresses owned by someone else. Your domain name is leased from a registrar. Your email address belongs to Google or Microsoft. Your social media presence exists at the pleasure of a company whose incentives don't align with yours.
Your NomadNet destination hash belongs to you the way a private key belongs to you. It's generated from your cryptographic identity. No one issued it to you, no one can take it away, and it follows your node wherever it runs. Move your node to a different machine, a different country, a different radio frequency — it's still the same address.
That's worth something. And right now, while the network is young, is the best time to get one.
Everything You Need
| What you need | Where to get it |
|---|---|
| Nomad Navigator | Linux .deb · Windows .exe · Windows Portable |
| NomadNet node software | pip install nomadnet |
| Config setup script | setup-reticulum-config.py |
| Sample site script | setup-nomadnet-pages.py |
| Backbone node config | rmap.world · directory.rns.recipes |
| Reticulum documentation | reticulum.network/manual |
| Submit your node | nodestar.net/node-submit |
| Node Star directory | nodestar.net/directory |
The Floor Is Open.
The early web had a moment where anyone who put up a page was remarkable just for being there. The early internet had a moment where having an email address was a thing people asked about at parties. Those moments always close eventually.
NomadNet's is open right now. Get your node running. Write your page. Share your hash. Get listed.
You'll be able to say you were there before everyone else — and you'll have a destination hash to prove it.