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l5yth/potato-mesh: A federated Meshtastic, Meshcore, and Reticulum node dashboard for your local community. No MQTT clutter, just local LoRa aether.

l5yth/potato-mesh: A federated Meshtastic, Meshcore, and Reticulum node dashboard for your local community. No MQTT clutter, just local LoRa aether.

5 hours ago

🥔 PotatoMesh

GitHub Workflow Status</a> GitHub release</a> codecov</a> Open-Source License</a> Contributions Welcome</a> Matrix Chat</a>

Meshtastic</a> Meshcore</a> Reticulum</a>

A federated Meshtastic, Meshcore, and Reticulum node dashboard for your local community. _No MQTT clutter, just local LoRa aether._

  • Web dashboard: map + chat, nodes, positions, neighbors, trace routes, telemetry, messages.
* API to POST (authenticated) and GET nodes, messages, and telemetry. * New-node and telemetry notifications in chat. * Search and filter nodes in map and table view. * Federates automatically with other communities running PotatoMesh. * Supports Meshtastic, Meshcore, and Reticulum.
  • Python ingestor feeds the web app's POST APIs remotely.
* Supports multiple ingestors per instance. * Supports Meshtastic, Meshcore, and Reticulum.
  • Matrix bridge posts Meshtastic messages to a Matrix channel (no radio required).
  • Mobile app to _read_ messages on your local aether (no radio required).
Live demo for Berlin:
potatomesh.net

!screenshot of the sixth version

Jump to Contents:

Web App

Requires Ruby and SQLite3.

pacman -S ruby sqlite3
gem install sinatra sqlite3 rackup puma rspec rack-test rufo prometheus-client
cd ./web
bundle install

Run

API_TOKEN="1eb140fd-cab4-40be-b862-41c607762246" ./app.sh
== Sinatra (v4.1.1) has taken the stage on 41447 for development with backup from Puma
Puma starting in single mode...
[...]
  • Environment: development
  • PID: 188487
  • Listening on http://127.0.0.1:41447
Open 127.0.0.1:41447 for the dashboard. API_TOKEN is required to authorize the API's POST endpoints.

Production

RACK_ENV="production" \
APP_ENV="production" \
API_TOKEN="SuperSecureTokenReally" \
INSTANCE_DOMAIN="https://potatomesh.net" \
MAP_CENTER="53.55,13.42" \
exec ruby app.rb -p 41447 -o 0.0.0.0
  • Set RACK_ENV=production and APP_ENV=production.
  • Bind to a production port and all interfaces: -p 41447 -o 0.0.0.0.
  • Set a strong API_TOKEN to authorize POST requests.
  • Set INSTANCE_DOMAIN to your deployment's public URL.
  • Set MAP_CENTER to your region's coordinates.
The web app can be configured with environment variables (defaults shown):

| Variable | Default | Purpose | | --- | --- | --- | | API_TOKEN | _required_ | Shared secret that authorizes ingestors and API clients making POST requests. | | INSTANCE_DOMAIN | _auto-detected_ | Public hostname (optionally with port) used for metadata, federation, and generated API links. | | SITE_NAME | "PotatoMesh Demo" | Title and header displayed in the UI. | | MESHTASTIC_PRESET | "#LongFast" | Meshtastic radio preset shown in the join strip, meta description, and federation directory (e.g. MediumFast). | | MESHTASTIC_FREQ | "915MHz" | Meshtastic frequency shown alongside the preset. | | MESHCORE_PRESET | _unset_ | Meshcore radio preset for the join strip; the Meshcore line is hidden until both MESHCORE_* values are set. | | MESHCORE_FREQ | _unset_ | Meshcore frequency for the join strip. | | CONTACT_LINK | "#potatomesh:dod.ngo" | Chat link or Matrix alias rendered in the footer and overlays. | | ANNOUNCEMENT | _unset_ | Optional announcement banner text rendered above the header on every page. | | MAP_CENTER | 38.761944,-27.090833 | Latitude and longitude that centre the map on load. | | MAP_ZOOM | _unset_ | Fixed Leaflet zoom applied on first load; disables auto-fit when provided. | | MAX_DISTANCE | 42 | Maximum distance (km) before node relationships are hidden on the map. | | DEBUG | 0 | Set to 1 for verbose logging in the web services. | | FEDERATION | 1 | Set to 1 to announce your instance and crawl peers, or 0 to disable federation. Private mode overrides this. | | PRIVATE | 0 | Set to 1 to hide the chat UI, disable message APIs, and exclude hidden clients from public listings. | | EVENTS | 1 | Set to 0 to disable the live-update SSE stream (GET /api/events); clients then fall back to polling at the refresh interval. | | MIN_THREADS | 16 | Minimum Puma worker threads kept warm. | | MAX_THREADS | 96 | Maximum Puma worker threads. Each active /api/events SSE stream pins one thread, so keep this above your peak concurrent SSE clients plus API/ingest headroom. | | OG_IMAGE_URL | _unset_ | Absolute http(s):// URL for the social preview image; other schemes are ignored. Replaces the generated /og-image.png. Use HTTPS - most platforms won't render an HTTP preview. | | PAGES_DIR | ./pages | The directory for static, custom-content pages. | | PROM_REPORT_IDS | _unset_ | Comma-separated node ids to expose as per-node Prometheus gauges. Empty exports none. |

/robots.txt and /sitemap.xml are generated automatically and respect PRIVATE/FEDERATION. Markdown files in pages/ may set YAML frontmatter (title, description, image, noindex); image must be an absolute http(s):// URL - other schemes are dropped.

If INSTANCE_DOMAIN is unset in production, the app warns once at startup and falls back to the inbound Host header for canonical URLs - vulnerable to cache poisoning behind a misconfigured proxy. Set INSTANCE_DOMAIN to avoid this.

Example:

SITE_NAME="PotatoMesh Demo" INSTANCE_DOMAIN="https://potatomesh.net" MAP_CENTER=38.761944,-27.090833 MAP_ZOOM=11 MAX_DISTANCE=42 CONTACT_LINK="#potatomesh:dod.ngo" ./app.sh

Configuration & Storage

Runtime assets follow the XDG base directory spec, falling back to the repository root when unset:

  • Key: $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/potato-mesh/keyfile
  • Well-known document: $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/potato-mesh/well-known/potato-mesh
  • Database: $XDG_DATA_HOME/potato-mesh
Outbound requests. The map loads basemap tiles from two third-party CDNs on every viewport: OpenStreetMap HOT (tile.openstreetmap.fr) and CARTO (basemaps.cartocdn.com). Only z/x/y tile coordinates are sent - no key, cookie, or analytics parameter. Tiles are the only third-party request the dashboard makes.

Custom Pages

Add Markdown files to web/pages/ to publish static content pages (contact info, rules, legal notices). Each .md file becomes a nav entry and a route at /pages/.

Filename format: -.md. The prefix sets nav order; the slug sets the URL and nav label:

| Filename | Nav Label | URL | | ---------------------- | -------------- | ----------------------- | | 1-about.md | About | /pages/about | | 5-rules.md | Rules | /pages/rules | | 9-contact.md | Contact | /pages/contact | | 20-impressum.md | Impressum | /pages/impressum |

  • Ships with a default 1-about.md.
  • Docker: the directory is the potatomesh_pages volume (/app/pages) - edit pages without rebuilding.
  • Override the directory with PAGES_DIR.

Federation

  • FEDERATION=1 (default): announce this instance, respond to crawlers, and crawl peers every 8 hours.
  • FEDERATION=0: fully isolated, no federation.
  • PRIVATE=1 disables federation regardless of FEDERATION.

API

All GET routes accept ?limit= and ?since=; bulk collections also accept ?before= and ?protocol=. All POST routes require Authorization: Bearer .

Collections - GET list, GET /:id for one node's rows, POST to ingest:

| Path | Notes | | --- | --- | | /api/nodes | GET, GET /:id, POST | | /api/positions | GET, GET /:id, POST | | /api/telemetry | GET, GET /:id, POST; /api/telemetry/aggregated for rollups | | /api/messages | GET, GET /:id, POST; all 404 when PRIVATE=1 | | /api/neighbors | GET, GET /:id, POST | | /api/traces | GET, GET /:id, POST | | /api/waypoints | GET, GET /:id, POST; all 404 when PRIVATE=1 | | /api/destinations | GET; ?node_id= filters. Reticulum destinations per node | | /api/ingestors | GET, POST. Active ingestors feeding this instance | | /api/instances | GET, POST. Known federated instances |

Other

| Path | Returns | | --- | --- | | GET /api/stats | Node/message/telemetry counts per protocol and window | | GET /api/stats/activity | Packets/hour time series per protocol | | GET /api/events | SSE stream of collection-change events | | GET /version | Instance name, version, and public config | | GET /metrics | Prometheus exporter - see PROMETHEUS.md | | GET /.well-known/potato-mesh | Signed federation record for this instance | | GET /og-image.png | Open Graph preview image | | GET /robots.txt, GET /sitemap.xml | Crawler directives |

Pages - GET / dashboard, GET /nodes/:id node detail, GET /pages/:slug custom pages. Static assets: GET /favicon.ico, GET /potatomesh-logo.svg.

There is no health endpoint; use GET /version.

Advanced tuning

Internal tuning knobs, all optional; set only to change the defaults shown. Not pre-declared in .env.example, Compose, or the NixOS module - set them directly in the web process's environment.

| Variable | Default | Purpose | | --- | --- | --- | | MIN_THREADS | 16 | Puma minimum thread count. | | MAX_THREADS | 96 | Puma maximum thread count. | | PUMA_FORCE_SHUTDOWN | 3 | Seconds Puma waits before forcing shutdown. | | STATS_CACHE_TTL_SECONDS | 60 | Cache lifetime for /api/stats responses. | | OG_IMAGE_TTL_SECONDS | 3600 | Cache lifetime for the generated /og-image.png. | | LIVE_SAFETY_POLL_SECONDS | 300 | Interval of the fallback poll that backstops the SSE stream. | | SSE_HEARTBEAT_SECONDS | 15 | Comment-frame keepalive interval on /api/events. | | SSE_MAX_LIFETIME_SECONDS | 600 | Maximum lifetime of one SSE connection before the client reconnects. | | SSE_PUBLISH_COOLDOWN | 1.0 | Minimum seconds between SSE publishes, coalescing bursts. | | SSE_THREAD_RESERVE | 32 | Threads held back from SSE so ordinary requests keep being served. | | FEDERATION_WORKERS | 4 | Federation crawl worker-pool size. | | FEDERATION_WORK_QUEUE | 128 | Queued federation tasks before new ones are dropped. | | FEDERATION_TASK_TIMEOUT | 120 | Seconds before one federation task is abandoned. | | FEDERATION_SHUTDOWN_TIMEOUT | 3 | Seconds to drain federation workers on shutdown. | | FEDERATION_CRAWL_COOLDOWN | 300 | Minimum seconds between crawls of the same domain. | | FEDERATION_MAX_DOMAINS_PER_CRAWL | 256 | Domain ceiling for one crawl pass. | | FEDERATION_MAX_INSTANCES_PER_RESPONSE | 64 | Instances accepted from one peer's response. | | INITIAL_FEDERATION_DELAY_SECONDS | 2 | Delay before the first crawl after boot. | | REMOTE_INSTANCE_CONNECT_TIMEOUT | 15 | Connect timeout when fetching a peer. | | REMOTE_INSTANCE_READ_TIMEOUT | 60 | Read timeout when fetching a peer. | | REMOTE_INSTANCE_REQUEST_TIMEOUT | 30 | Overall request timeout when fetching a peer. | | REMOTE_INSTANCE_MAX_RESPONSE_BYTES | 8388608 | Response ceiling (8 MiB) when fetching a peer. | | MESHTASTIC_PSK_B64 | AQ== | Base64 PSK used to decrypt Meshtastic messages that ingestors forward still encrypted (default = Meshtastic default key). |

Monitoring

PotatoMesh ships with a Prometheus exporter mounted at /metrics. Consult PROMETHEUS.md for deployment guidance, metric details, and scrape configuration examples.

Ingestor

The web app never connects to a radio; it only ingests via authenticated POST. Run one or more Python ingestors from ./data to feed it - each connects to a LoRa node over serial, TCP, or Bluetooth (BLE), and multiple ingestors can feed one instance without duplicating data.

pacman -S python
cd ./data
python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

Check out mesh.sh ingestor script in the ./data directory.

INSTANCE_DOMAIN=http://127.0.0.1:41447 API_TOKEN=1eb140fd-cab4-40be-b862-41c607762246 CONNECTION=/dev/ttyACM0 DEBUG=1 ./mesh.sh
[2025-02-20T12:34:56.789012Z] [potato-mesh] [info] channel=0 context=daemon.main port='41447' target='http://127.0.0.1' Mesh daemon starting
[...]
[2025-02-20T12:34:57.012345Z] [potato-mesh] [debug] context=handlers.upsert_node node_id=!849b7154 short_name='7154' long_name='7154' Queued node upsert payload
[2025-02-20T12:34:57.456789Z] [potato-mesh] [debug] context=handlers.upsert_node node_id=!ba653ae8 short_name='3ae8' long_name='3ae8' Queued node upsert payload
[2025-02-20T12:34:58.001122Z] [potato-mesh] [debug] context=handlers.store_packet_dict channel=0 from_id='!9ee71c38' payload='Guten Morgen!' to_id='^all' Queued message payload

Configure with the environment variables below.

| Variable | Default | Purpose | | --- | --- | --- | | API_TOKEN | _required_ | Shared secret that authorizes ingestors and API clients making POST requests. | | INSTANCE_DOMAIN | _required_ | Public hostname (optionally with port) used for feeding the API with data. | | PROTOCOL | meshtastic | Which protocol are we ingesting? One of meshtastic, meshcore, or reticulum. | | CONNECTION | /dev/ttyACM0 | Where do we talk to the node? Accepts serial ports, TCP host:port (e.g. 192.168.1.20:4403), and Bluetooth addresses: MAC format (e.g. ED:4D:9E:95:CF:60) or, on macOS, UUID format (e.g. C0AEA92F-045E-9B82-C9A6-A1FD822B3A9E). Ignored under PROTOCOL=reticulum, which has no single endpoint - see Reticulum. | | DEBUG | 0 | Set to 1 for verbose logging in the ingestor services. | | CHANNEL_INDEX | 0 | Channel index the activity announcement is sent on (see TX_ANNOUNCE). It does not filter what is ingested. | | ENERGY_SAVING | 0 | Set to 1 to duty-cycle the radio connection instead of holding it open. | | FREQUENCY | _unset_ | Deprecated alias for MESHTASTIC_FREQ; overrides the auto-detected LoRa frequency. | | CHANNEL | _unset_ | Deprecated alias for MESHTASTIC_PRESET. | | ALLOWED_CHANNELS | _unset_ | Comma-separated channel names the ingestor accepts (e.g. Chat,Ops); when set, messages, positions, telemetry and node info heard on any other channel are dropped, before HIDDEN_CHANNELS applies. The node list sent at connect can still carry a node's last position, metrics and signal details (last heard, SNR, hop limit) heard on a filtered channel. | | HIDDEN_CHANNELS | _unset_ | Comma-separated channel names the ingestor drops: messages, positions, telemetry and node info heard on them are not forwarded. The node list sent at connect can still carry a node's last position, metrics and signal details (last heard, SNR, hop limit) heard on a filtered channel. | | DROP_VIA_MQTT | 0 | Set to 1 to drop Meshtastic packets and nodes the radio marks as relayed via MQTT. | | TRANSPORT | api | Ingestor transport: api (Meshtastic library over serial/TCP/BLE) or udp (passive LAN multicast; see Passive UDP transport). | | PRIMARY_CHANNEL_ONLY | 0 | Set to 1 to ingest only the primary channel (index 0) and drop all other channels. In UDP transport this requires PRIMARY_CHANNEL_NAME; without it, every packet is dropped (fail closed). The node list sent at connect can still carry a node's last position, metrics and signal details (last heard, SNR, hop limit) heard on a filtered channel. | | PRIMARY_CHANNEL_KEY | AQ== | Base64 PSK used to decrypt the primary channel in UDP transport (default = Meshtastic default key). | | PRIMARY_CHANNEL_NAME | _unset_ | Name of channel 0 (e.g. MediumFast); find it with meshtastic --info if blank on the radio. Required by UDP PRIMARY_CHANNEL_ONLY=1. | | MESH_UDP_GROUP | 239.0.0.69,224.0.0.69 | Comma-separated multicast groups joined in UDP transport. The default listens on both; set one address to listen on that group only. | | MESH_UDP_PORT | 4403 | Multicast port joined in UDP transport. | | INGESTOR_NODE_ID | _unset_ | !xxxxxxxx id used for the ingestor heartbeat. Required for the UDP transport, which cannot auto-detect "self". Optional for PROTOCOL=reticulum, which derives one from your primary announced identity; set it there only to override that. | | RETICULUM_CONFIG_DIR | ~/.reticulum | Which RNS config the ingestor uses, and so which interfaces it can see. Point it at the directory your rnsd uses. See Reticulum. | | RETICULUM_FREQ | _from RNS config_ | Frequency shown for Reticulum nodes. Overrides the value read from your RNodeInterface section. | | RETICULUM_PRESET | _from RNS config_ | Radio preset shown for Reticulum nodes. Overrides the value derived from your bandwidth/spreading-factor/coding-rate. | | RETICULUM_INTERFACES | _unset_ | Which RNS interfaces to ingest from, e.g. RNode. Comma-separated, case-insensitive substring match against the names in rnstatus. Your own nodes are always ingested; empty ingests everything. See Reticulum. | | MESHCORE_TELEMETRY_POLL_SECONDS | 300 | Requires TX_ENABLED=1 (polling other nodes is a transmission). Seconds between Meshcore contact telemetry polls (one on-air request per interval, round-robin over the roster; each contact is additionally polled at most once per 24 h: when every contact is fresh the tick sends nothing). Set 0 to disable on-air polling. | | MESHCORE_TELEMETRY_POLL_24H_EXEMPT | _unset_ | Comma-separated node ids exempt from the once-per-24 h cap; listed nodes are polled every round-robin rotation (still one request per interval). | | MESHCORE_SELF_TELEMETRY_SECONDS | 3600 | Seconds between Meshcore host self-telemetry reads (battery/sensors over the companion link, no airtime). Set 0 to disable. | | TX_ENABLED | 0 | Master switch for all ingestor transmissions. 0 = listen only. 1 = allow transmit - enables Meshcore on-air telemetry polling; does not by itself enable announcements. See Transmitting on the mesh. | | TX_ANNOUNCE | 0 | Requires TX_ENABLED=1. Broadcasts a one-line activity summary at most once per 24 h, never in the first 24 h after start. See Transmitting on the mesh. |

Transmitting on the mesh

By default a PotatoMesh ingestor never transmits. It listens, and forwards what it hears to your dashboard. Nothing below happens unless you turn it on.

| Variable | Default | What turning it on means | | --- | --- | --- | | TX_ENABLED | 0 | The ingestor may transmit. On its own this enables Meshcore on-air telemetry polling: round-robin requests to other nodes for their battery/sensor readings, at most one request per MESHCORE_TELEMETRY_POLL_SECONDS (default 300 s) and at most once per 24 h per node. This is how other nodes' telemetry reaches your dashboard. Meshtastic ingestion needs no transmission at all. | | TX_ANNOUNCE | 0 | Requires TX_ENABLED=1. Broadcasts one line on your default channel, at most once every 24 h, and never in the first 24 h after the ingestor starts. |

The announcement looks like this:

Meshtastic activity in the last 24h: 42 active nodes, 118 packets/hour. https://mesh.example.org

Numbers come from the instance's public API. Suppressed when the instance is PRIVATE=1; fails closed (no transmit) if the check can't reach the instance.

Both flags must be on for an announcement to go out:

| TX_ENABLED | TX_ANNOUNCE | Result | | --- | --- | --- | | 0 | 0 | Receive only. The default. | | 0 | 1 | Receive only: TX_ENABLED=0 wins. | | 1 | 0 | Telemetry polling on, no announcements. | | 1 | 1 | Telemetry polling on, one announcement per 24 h. |

The ingestor logs the resolved policy at startup, without DEBUG=1:

[2026-08-24T09:12:44.117Z] [potato-mesh] [info] context=tx.policy announcements_permitted=False rx_only=False transmit_permitted=False tx_announce=False tx_enabled=False Transmit policy resolved

If a flag seems to have no effect, that line shows what the ingestor actually resolved - including a flag that never reached the container.

Meshcore

Set PROTOCOL=meshcore to ingest from a Meshcore companion-firmware node (serial, TCP, or BLE via the same CONNECTION formats). Captures RF metrics alongside contacts and messages: per-message SNR/hop counts, per-channel-message RSSI and repeater path, and per-advert SNR/RSSI/hops for every node heard - including nodes with no room in the radio's contact roster.

The ingestor writes one radio setting at startup: enables the firmware's overwrite-oldest-contact flag (autoadd_config bit 0x01, firmware ≥ 1.16) when not already set.

  • Never evicts favourites; other auto-add settings are preserved.
  • Older firmware (no command support) is left untouched.
  • Evicted contacts stay in the dashboard's database - only the radio's local roster rotates.

Reticulum

Set PROTOCOL=reticulum to ingest from a Reticulum (RNS) network. The ingestor listens for announces and files each one as a node. It never transmits, so TX_ENABLED=0 (the default) is fine.

CONNECTION does not apply; if set, the ingestor ignores it and logs that it did.

It reads your existing ~/.reticulum, so if rnsd already works, so does this:

API_TOKEN=... INSTANCE_DOMAIN=https://your.instance PROTOCOL=reticulum ./data/mesh.sh

To ingest only from your radio, set RETICULUM_INTERFACES to part of the interface name from rnstatus - matching is case-insensitive substring:

RETICULUM_INTERFACES="RNode Reticulum Berlin"

Your own nodes are always ingested regardless of this setting. Everything further away is filtered by it.

To use a different RNS config, set RETICULUM_CONFIG_DIR, pointing at the same directory your rnsd uses - interface filtering fails across mismatched directories.

In Docker, the config dir is the potatomesh_reticulum volume (/app/.config/potato-mesh/reticulum). RNS seeds a stock config there with only a link-local AutoInterface, which reaches no radio on the default bridge network:

  • Add your interfaces to the volume's config file, then restart:
docker compose exec ingestor sh -c 'cat >> /app/.config/potato-mesh/reticulum/config'
  • Or point RETICULUM_CONFIG_DIR at a bind mount of the host's ~/.reticulum
and run with host networking.

The ingestor derives its node id from your primary identity - the one announcing the most destinations on this machine. INGESTOR_NODE_ID overrides it. It reports the id it resolved at startup:

context=reticulum.connect ... node_id='!27716218' Reticulum announce listener registered

node_id='pending' means nothing local has been heard yet; the ingestor retries each loop and logs again once it resolves. Not the transport identity - not the hash rnstatus prints as "Transport Instance".

Changing the id strands the old row. Setting, changing, or removing INGESTOR_NODE_ID moves the ingestor's node id; the previous row stays in /api/ingestors without heartbeats until it ages out. Leaving the variable as-is across upgrades is inert.

Frequency and preset are read from the first RNodeInterface in your RNS config; RETICULUM_FREQ and RETICULUM_PRESET override them. A matching preset name describes radio settings only, not interoperability with a Meshtastic mesh; otherwise it shows SF8/BW125/CR5. Values are read once at startup - change them in the RNS config and restart the ingestor, or the dashboard keeps showing the old ones.

A node is one row per identity - a peer running both LXMF and a nomadnet node is still one entry. Its destinations (addresses) are listed via GET /api/destinations and shown as sub-rows grouped under the identity in the dashboard table.

Announces carry no SNR, battery, or position, so those columns show dashes and Reticulum nodes stay off the map.

Passive UDP transport

Meshtastic's node API accepts only one client at a time. Set TRANSPORT=udp to run the ingestor as a passive listener on the node's LAN multicast groups (port 4403) instead of connecting to the API - leaving the API slot free for the phone app or CLI.

Enable "Mesh via UDP" on the node first: meshtastic --set network.enabled_protocols 1.

  • Listens on 239.0.0.69 (firmware 2.8 and later) and 224.0.0.69 (earlier firmware). Set MESH_UDP_GROUP to one of them to listen on that group only.
  • Decrypts the primary channel with PRIMARY_CHANNEL_KEY (default AQ==). Channels with other keys are dropped undecrypted.
  • Set PRIMARY_CHANNEL_ONLY=1 and PRIMARY_CHANNEL_NAME to ingest only channel 0. Without PRIMARY_CHANNEL_NAME set, PRIMARY_CHANNEL_ONLY=1 drops every packet (fail closed).
  • The node list rebuilds from observed packets - the node's own database is not read. Decoded payloads (position, telemetry, traceroute, …) match the API/serial transport shape.
TRANSPORT=udp requires host networking (network_mode: host). A ready-to-use Raspberry Pi (arm64) deployment is provided in data/tools/compose.udp.pi.yml. Capture live packets for testing with data/tools/capture_udp_fixtures.py.

Nix

For the dev shell, run:

nix develop

The shell provides Ruby plus the Python ingestor dependencies (including meshtastic and protobuf). To sanity-check that the ingestor starts, run python -m data.mesh with the usual environment variables (INSTANCE_DOMAIN, API_TOKEN, CONNECTION).

To run the packaged apps directly:

nix run .#web
nix run .#ingestor

Minimal NixOS module snippet:

services.potato-mesh = {
  enable = true;
  apiTokenFile = config.sops.secrets.potato-mesh-api-token.path;
  dataDir = "/var/lib/potato-mesh";
  port = 41447;
  instanceDomain = "https://mesh.me";
  siteName = "Nix Mesh";
  contactLink = "homeserver.mx";
  mapCenter = "28.96,-13.56";
  frequency = "868MHz";
  ingestor = {
    enable = true;
    connection = "192.168.X.Y:4403";
  };
};

Every variable in the tables above has a module option, named in camelCase (SITE_NAME → siteName, OG_IMAGE_URL → ogImageUrl):

  • Web options sit at the top level; ingestor options sit under ingestor.
  • PROTOCOL, TRANSPORT, INGESTOR_NODE_ID → ingestor.protocol,
ingestor.transport, ingestor.nodeId.
  • RETICULUM_CONFIG_DIR, RETICULUM_INTERFACES → ingestor.reticulumConfigDir,
ingestor.reticulumInterfaces.
  • Options typed nullOr emit no variable when left null, so the app keeps its
own default.

Docker

Docker images are published on GitHub Container Registry for each release. Image names and tags follow the workflow format: ${IMAGE_PREFIX}-${service}-${architecture}:${tag} (see .github/workflows/docker.yml).

docker pull ghcr.io/l5yth/potato-mesh-web-linux-amd64:latest
docker pull ghcr.io/l5yth/potato-mesh-web-linux-arm64:latest
docker pull ghcr.io/l5yth/potato-mesh-web-linux-armv7:latest

docker pull ghcr.io/l5yth/potato-mesh-ingestor-linux-amd64:latest docker pull ghcr.io/l5yth/potato-mesh-ingestor-linux-arm64:latest docker pull ghcr.io/l5yth/potato-mesh-ingestor-linux-armv7:latest

docker pull ghcr.io/l5yth/potato-mesh-matrix-bridge-linux-amd64:latest docker pull ghcr.io/l5yth/potato-mesh-matrix-bridge-linux-arm64:latest docker pull ghcr.io/l5yth/potato-mesh-matrix-bridge-linux-armv7:latest

version-pinned examples

docker pull ghcr.io/l5yth/potato-mesh-web-linux-amd64:v0.7.5 docker pull ghcr.io/l5yth/potato-mesh-ingestor-linux-amd64:v0.7.5 docker pull ghcr.io/l5yth/potato-mesh-matrix-bridge-linux-amd64:v0.7.5

Note: latest is only published for non-prerelease versions. Pre-release tags such as -rc, -beta, -alpha, or -dev are version-tagged only.

When using Compose, set POTATOMESH_IMAGE_ARCH in docker-compose.yml (or via environment) so service images resolve to the correct architecture variant and you avoid manual tag mistakes.

Feel free to run the configure.sh script to set up your environment. See the Docker guide for more details and custom deployment instructions.

Matrix Bridge

Work in progress. Forwards messages from a PotatoMesh instance to a Matrix channel (no radio required). See matrix/README.md.

!matrix bridge

Mobile App

Work in progress. A read-only reader app for Android and iOS. See app/README.md.

Demos

Post your nodes and screenshots here:

License

Apache v2.0, Contact

Join our community chat to discuss the dashboard or ask for technical support: #potatomesh:dod.ngo

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