A native Reticulum client for iOS and Mac.
Decentralized, encrypted communication over Reticulum, LXMF, LoRa, and remote transport nodes — no servers, no gatekeepers.
icenomad.net · tux.icenomad.net · IceNomad for Linux · wanderingpenguin@icenomad.net · Report an issue
🖥️ Mac — live | 📱 iPhone — in TestFlight | 🐧 Linux — alpha
- About
- Features
- New to Reticulum?
- Download
- Tux — a search engine for Reticulum
- Roadmap
- Status
- The Story
- Built With
- Contributing
- Support IceNomad
- License
IceNomad is a native client for the Reticulum Network Stack, built to bring decentralized mesh communication to your phone and your desktop — the same way, on the same codebase.
Connect over TCP to a remote transport node, or go direct over LoRa with an RNode — by Bluetooth, WiFi, or (on Mac) plugged in over USB. Send messages, browse NomadNet pages, and see the mesh around you, all from a genuinely native SwiftUI app.
- Reticulum protocol stack, implemented in Swift — real identity/crypto, packet routing, Links, and Resource transfers, not a wrapper around someone else's client
- LXMF messaging — reliable two-way delivery, contacts that track a peer's live announced name, a persistent message history, notification sounds and unread badges
- NomadNet browser — fetches and renders real
.mupages, with favorites, downloads, and a home screen you can navigate from - Tux search built into the address bar — live search suggestions as you type, backed by Tux, Reticulum's own search engine
- Pack Ice — a live, explorable map of the real mesh: every node Tux has crawled, clustered into "islands" by how connected they actually are, nothing simulated
- RNode (LoRa) support — Bluetooth, WiFi, and direct USB serial (Mac), with full radio configuration built into the app
- Live announce feed — see peers as they're heard, filterable by LXMF, NomadNet, or specifically what's coming in over LoRa
- QR code scanning and sharing for addresses
- Adaptive light/dark theme, native on both iOS and Mac
- First-launch onboarding with a randomly generated penguin-themed identity, so you're never staring at a blank name field
- A bundled getting-started guide, right in the app — Settings → Getting Started, no internet connection required to read it
Never used a mesh network before? Read the User Guide — a plain-language walkthrough of what Reticulum actually is, getting connected, messaging, browsing, and where to go if you get stuck. No prior networking knowledge assumed. It's also bundled straight into the app itself, under Settings → Getting Started.
IceNomad runs as a genuinely native Mac app, built on the exact same SwiftUI codebase as iOS via Mac Catalyst — not a wrapper, not a separate port.
⬇ Download the latest Mac build from GitHub Releases. It's fully notarized by Apple — download, drag to Applications, and open it like any other Mac app. No Gatekeeper warnings, no right-click workaround needed.
Prefer to build it yourself? See BUILDING.md — about 10 minutes, mostly Xcode installing.
IceNomad is in public beta now. Join the beta on TestFlight to install it on your iPhone or iPad.
IceNomad for Linux is real and working — a GUI styled to match IceNomad itself (same dark theme, same layout), plus a terminal client for anyone who lives there instead. Built directly on the real rns/lxmf packages rather than a port of this app's own Swift stack. It's alpha — genuinely working, tested live against the real mesh, but young — so expect rough edges, and report what you find.
git clone https://github.com/whiteice217/IceNomad-Linux
cd IceNomad-Linux
python3 -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
python3 -m icenomad_linux.guiTux is live at tux.icenomad.net — Reticulum's own search engine. It crawls NomadNet's .mu pages across the mesh, indexes what it finds, and makes the whole thing searchable, so you don't need to memorize a 32-character hash just to find a page you liked.
- Real full-text search over hundreds of crawled nodes, with an AI layer that reads each site and writes a one-line summary for search results
- Hierarchical categories — sites get sorted into a small set of top-level topics with real depth underneath (e.g.
Literature > Poetry > French), browsable at tux.icenomad.net/categories - Friendly names — claim a
.muname for your own node so people can find you by name instead of a hash - Pack Ice — the mesh, visualized: real nodes as icebergs, clustered into archipelagos by how connected they actually are, pan/zoom to explore
- No client required — plain HTTPS at tux.icenomad.net works from any browser, no Reticulum stack needed
- Built into IceNomad — Tux is the Browser tab's home page (when connected via the IceNomad Public Relay), rendered as its real HTML — not a plainer reconstruction — with the same live search suggestions surfaced right in the address bar
- Full App Store release — iOS is in public TestFlight beta now (see Download above); a full App Store listing is next
- IceNomad for Linux out of alpha — RNode support, form submission on browsed pages, and real packaging are next
- Offline message delivery — receiving LXMF messages sent while your app wasn't running, via propagation node support
- Always-on background operation on Mac — stay reachable without keeping the app window open
Actively developed. Currently working and in daily use:
- Reticulum protocol integration — real packet routing, Links, Resource transfers
- LXMF messaging, both directions, confirmed reliable
- NomadNet browsing — real pages, real nodes
- Tux search — live at tux.icenomad.net and integrated into the app's address bar
- RNode connectivity over Bluetooth, WiFi, and USB serial
- TCP client interfaces and live connection monitoring
- Native iOS and Mac Catalyst builds from one codebase
A wandering penguin, a retired Yeti, and how Tux came to be — read the story.
Swift · SwiftUI · Reticulum · LXMF · LoRa / RNode · NomadNet · Apple's Network Framework
IceNomad is an open-source hobby project — contributions, bug reports, and feature suggestions are always welcome. Open an issue or submit a pull request any time.
I'm the wandering penguin from the story — in real life, a nursing student who's loved tech for a lot longer than I've been in medicine. I build and maintain IceNomad out of my own pocket, one trail marker at a time. If you'd like to help keep it going, it's genuinely appreciated — every bit goes straight back into development. No pressure at all; just having you here using it means a lot.
Bitcoin (native): 3PC2aHq4m71c5nsCytGd37nZbSAWbuHrEM
Crypto — Base network only (ETH, USDC, or BTC via cbBTC): 0xb708a0A34572Be9C7845E3Caa26733C3F1A2d914
Only send assets on the Base network to that address — anything sent on another network (Ethereum mainnet, native Bitcoin, etc.) may be lost.
Be kind to one another, and share a fish when you can.
— Wandering Penguin (@whiteice217)
MIT License.