OpenMANETd

Management and operations daemon for OpenMANET mesh networks. Runs on OpenMANET mesh nodes and provides, mesh management, an embedded React web interface, and a gRPC/HTTP API.

Features

Web Interface

• Embedded React SPA served from the binary (no external assets required)
• Multi-channel PTT grid with waveform visualization and mic level monitoring
• Real-time receive audio display and optional replay buffer
• Mesh topology map and neighbor status
• WiFi, network, and DHCP configuration pages
• System dashboard with quick actions (reboot, restart services)
• On-device speech-to-text transcription via Whisper (model downloaded on demand)

Mesh Management (batman-adv / Alfred)

• Publishes node identity, position, gateway, and IP reservation data across the mesh
• Receives the same from neighboring nodes for network-wide discovery
• Automatic batman-adv gateway detection and advertisement
• Topology snapshot API (MeshTopologyService) with 60s churn metrics (routes added/lost, gateway changes, reconverge time) for the UI topology view

WiFi & Network Management

• Radio configuration (channel, bandwidth, TX power, mode)
• Connected AP client and mesh peer listing
• Network interface monitoring with live traffic counters
• DHCP server configuration and static lease management
• VXLAN peer management

Beyond-Line-of-Sight (BLOS)

• Extends mesh range via Tailscale/Headscale VPN
• Automatically creates VXLAN tunnels to Tailscale peers
• Configurable auth key and custom login server (Headscale support)
• Live overlay-status API: tunnel identity, RX/TX counters with 60s rates, DERP region, per-peer table, ACL tags and advertised routes
• Server-streaming event RPC emits peer add/lost, online/offline, backend state, and DERP changes for real-time UI dashboards

GNSS / GPS

• Integrates with gpsd to stream position data
• Publishes in NMEA and/or Cursor-on-Target (CoT) formats

API

• Protobuf-defined services exposed via Connect RPC (gRPC + HTTP/JSON)
• Services: CommsService, DashboardService, WifiConfigService, NetworkInterfaceService, BLOSService, MeshTopologyService, GNSSService, node and status endpoints
• Server-streaming RPCs for audio (CommsService) and BLOS events (BLOSService)
• WebSocket endpoint for real-time audio streaming
• Session-based authentication (PAM-backed); works via cookie for the Web UI or Authorization: Bearer header for direct callers — see docs/api-authentication.md

Architecture

cmd/                              CLI entry points (root daemon, frontend-only mode)
internal/openmanet/               Top-level wiring — starts all subsystems
internal/openmanet/server/        ConnectRPC HTTP server + service registration
internal/openmanet/server/handlers/   Service handler implementations
internal/api/                     AUTO-GENERATED protobuf + ConnectRPC Go stubs
internal/comms/                   Opus/RTP audio, PTT control, jitter buffer
internal/blos/                    BLOS/Tailscale/VXLAN overlay
internal/mgmt/                    Alfred mesh management, wireless config
internal/gpsd/                    gpsd integration, NMEA/CoT publishing
internal/network/                 Network interface, DHCP, routing, UCI config
internal/frontend/                Embedded HTTP server (serves SPA, proxies /api and /ws)
internal/database/                SQLite: schema.sql + query.sql; models/ is generated
internal/config/                  Viper-backed config (/etc/openmanetd/config.yml)
proto/                            Git submodule — .proto source files
frontend/                         React SPA (Vite); build output → static/

Ports: API + WebSocket = 8087. Frontend = 8081 (proxies /api/* and /ws to 8087).

Quickstart

Start the DevContainer and run:

make build          # fmt → vet → buf → sqlc-gen → frontend → compile
./bin/openmanetd

Use make build-lite for a smaller binary (~5 MB) without audio/comms hardware dependencies.

Frontend dev server (hot-reload, pointed at a remote node):

cd frontend && VITE_API_TARGET=http://<node-ip>:8081 pnpm run dev

Frontend-only mode (no local database or hardware):

./bin/openmanetd frontend --api-address http://<node-ip>:8087

Configuration

The config file lives at /etc/openmanetd/config.yml. Key sections:

Developer Tools

• A DevContainer is included with all required native libraries (CGO, PortAudio, SQLite, etc.).
• The protobuf specs live in proto/, a git submodule from OpenMANET/protobuf. If empty: git submodule update --init --recursive, then make buf.
• CGO is required for the full build (go-sqlite3, portaudio, go-alfred). Use make build-lite to skip comms/whisper.
• Never edit internal/api/, frontend/src/gen/, or internal/database/models/ — these are generated and will be overwritten.

Further documentation can be found in the Getting Started doc.