YGGDRASIL Network Release
After more than two years of development, YGGDRASIL has published the release of the reference implementation of the protocol yggdrasil 0.5. This protocol allows for a separate decentralized private IPv6 network on top of the usual global network to protect confidentiality through encryption. The implementation, written in the Go language, is distributed under the LGPLV3 license and is supported on Linux, Windows, MacOS, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, VYOS, and Ubiquiti Edgerouter.
YGGDRASIL has developed a new routing concept for creating a global decentralized network. The nodes in this network can be connected directly to each other in MESH network mode, such as via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, and can interact over existing IPv6 or IPv4 networks. The self-organization feature of YGGDRASIL eliminates the need for explicit routing settings, as information about routes is calculated based on the node’s location relative to other nodes. Devices are addressed using the usual IPv6 address, which remains unchanged for the node.
The entire YGGDRASIL network is considered as a single structured tree, with each node having one parent or more descendants. This tree structure enables efficient routing from source to destination using a locator mechanism that determines the optimal path from the root. Information about the tree is distributed between nodes and is not stored centrally. While the network provides encryption to protect contents from transit nodes, it does not offer complete anonymity, as direct interaction with one-hop nodes connected via the Internet can reveal the real IP address. To enhance anonymity, it is proposed to connect nodes through Tor or i2p.
Despite being at the alpha development stage, YGGDRASIL is already stable enough for daily use. However, it does not guarantee reverse compatibility between releases. The community supports YGGDRASIL with a set of services, including a platform for hosting sites using Linux containers, Yacy search system, MATRIX server for communications, IRC server, DNS, VOIP system,