Separate control and data logically, move WireGuard into userspace, add a CLI

Corrects the architecture on two points raised in review, while the project
is still small enough to change cheaply.

1. Control and data are separated *logically*, not physically.

The old reading — "nothing but control may ride on iroh" — threw away iroh's
whole value and would have forced the data plane to reimplement STUN, ICE and
a relay. Now both planes ride on iroh with different ALPNs and different
connections, so the data plane inherits hole punching and relay fallback,
while proto/ still knows nothing about packets and dataplane/ knows nothing
about the control protocol.

New boundary: PacketTransport / PacketLink, an authenticated unreliable
datagram channel per (network, peer, protocol). tsunagi/data/1 runs the same
membership handshake, then DataOpen/DataOpenAck, then QUIC datagrams. Only
the smaller endpoint id dials, so exactly one link exists per pair.

A plugin is handed links and never learns reachability, so the WireGuard
announcement shrank to a public key: there is no address left to lie about.

2. WireGuard now runs in userspace, on boringtun's protocol state machine.

No kernel module, no wg tool, no ip shell-out, no loopback proxy: the wgtool,
backend and bridge modules are gone. Only creating a TUN device needs
privileges, and that sits behind TunFactory, so the entire data plane —
handshake, encryption, routing, address ownership — is tested with none.

Address ownership is enforced rather than believed: outbound packets go to
the owner of the destination address, inbound packets are dropped unless
their source is the address derived for the peer that sent them.

3. A `tsunagi` binary: secret, doctor, id, up. It owns the runtime, the
logging subscriber and Ctrl-C, which the library still refuses to.

Also fixes a reference cycle where IrohTransport held Arc<Inner>, which kept
the databases open and the directory lock held after shutdown; two storage
tests caught it once the cycle existed.

81 tests pass offline with no privileges, including real IPv6 packets
crossing a real WireGuard tunnel over real iroh connections. Verified by
hand: two CLI processes forming a mesh both on loopback and via n0 discovery
using only an endpoint id.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
tsunagi
2026-09-21 11:55:20 +01:00
co-authored by Claude Opus 5
parent ea7aaa2b69
commit 21be7e9b44
35 changed files with 3987 additions and 2664 deletions
+66 -15
View File
@@ -31,9 +31,10 @@ A working library with **real iroh connections** and integration tests:
- status snapshots, an event stream and honest diagnostics;
- configuration restored after a restart;
- correct behaviour when the disposable cache is missing or corrupt;
- a **WireGuard data plane plugin**: its own key per network, deterministic
IPv6 overlay addressing, a full-mesh configuration built locally, and
reconciliation that repairs drift.
- a **WireGuard data plane**, in userspace: its own key per network,
deterministic IPv6 overlay addressing, real tunnels carried over iroh, and
address ownership enforced rather than believed;
- a **command line agent**, `tsunagi`.
### What it deliberately does **not** do
@@ -45,15 +46,69 @@ and signed revocations are designed for but not implemented — see
including that its system backend is Linux-only, are in
[docs/wireguard.md](docs/wireguard.md#limits-and-future-work).
**Only control messages travel over iroh. User IP traffic is not tunnelled
through it.** Filtering user traffic is the operating system's and the user's
responsibility, not this library's.
**Control and data are separated logically, not physically.** Both ride on
iroh, on different ALPNs and different connections, so the data plane inherits
iroh's hole punching and relay fallback instead of reimplementing them — while
the control protocol still knows nothing about packets and can keep a different
transport underneath it later. Filtering user traffic remains the operating
system's and the user's responsibility, not this library's.
## Requirements
- Rust 1.91 or newer (iroh 1.2 requires it) (edition 2024). Pinned dependencies in `Cargo.lock`.
- Rust 1.91 or newer (iroh 1.2 requires it), edition 2024. Pinned dependencies
in `Cargo.lock`.
- No internet, no DHT, no public relay, no administrator rights and no changes
to OS network settings are needed to build or test.
- WireGuard runs in userspace (boringtun): **no kernel module and no `wg`
tool**. Only creating a real network interface needs `CAP_NET_ADMIN`, and
`--no-tun` skips even that.
## Trying it on two machines
On the first machine:
```bash
cargo build --release
./target/release/tsunagi secret # prints tsn1...; share it privately
./target/release/tsunagi doctor # what this host can and cannot do
./target/release/tsunagi up --network lab --secret "$SECRET" --wireguard
```
It prints its endpoint id and then waits. On the second machine, pass that id:
```bash
./target/release/tsunagi up --network lab --secret "$SECRET" --wireguard \
--peer <endpoint-id-from-the-first-machine>
```
Within a few seconds both print something like:
```text
+ peer b47c958462 connected over Direct rtt=Some(4.5ms)
+ data link to b47c958462 for wireguard: Direct via Ip(…), datagram 1382
--- status ---
control: 1 peer(s), 0 dial failure(s), 0 handshake failure(s)
wireguard: tsunkkcp43lmdje on fd15:1d9e:fa21:f201:…/64 mtu 1100, 1/1 tunnel(s) established
4jO4kx9Z fd15:1d9e:fa21:f201:… handshake 3s ago tx=0 rx=0 dropped=0 path=Direct via Ip(…)
```
`1/1 tunnel(s) established` means a real WireGuard handshake completed. Then
`ping6` the peer's overlay address.
Notes:
- Only one side needs `--peer`; the link is bidirectional. Peer discovery
beyond this manual bootstrap is future work.
- The default `--transport n0` uses iroh's public address lookup and relays, so
two machines behind NAT find each other. `--transport local` keeps everything
on the local network.
- Without `CAP_NET_ADMIN`, add `--no-tun`: the mesh, the data links and the
WireGuard handshakes all still run and are visible in the status output, only
traffic does not reach the operating system. That is the quickest way to
confirm the network forms.
- Run as root (or grant `CAP_NET_ADMIN`) to get a real interface.
## Checks
@@ -71,18 +126,11 @@ tests:
```bash
cargo run --example two_agents # control plane only
cargo run --example wireguard_mesh # two agents forming a WireGuard overlay
cargo run --example wireguard_mesh # a WireGuard overlay carrying a real packet
```
Both run with no privileges and change nothing on the host.
The one part that does change the host's network — the real `wg`/`ip` backend —
is behind `--ignored` and needs Linux, wireguard-tools and `CAP_NET_ADMIN`:
```bash
sudo -E cargo test --test wireguard_system -- --ignored --test-threads=1
```
## Usage
```rust,no_run
@@ -146,6 +194,9 @@ The WireGuard plugin keeps its own keys in its own `wireguard.sqlite`, wherever
its configuration points, because plugin keys are neither the iroh identity nor
the network secret.
The command line agent puts everything under the platform's per-user
directories by default; `--state-dir` and `--cache-dir` override them.
One state directory belongs to one live agent, enforced with a real OS file
lock rather than an existence check.